


The Winter Ink

by PrittlePrince



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Domesticity, First Times, Forest Magic, Ghosts, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Please Pay Attention to the Warnings, Water Magic, do you like casper?, explicit content, happy endings, possible necromancy you can confirm your thoughts on this the comments, this is a sad story but it doesnt have a sad ending, unexpected power dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-06 05:17:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21221216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrittlePrince/pseuds/PrittlePrince
Summary: Jungwoo wakes from his death to navigate a new perspective and a new life.He builds a sense of home with a strange, handsome man and finds that there can be more to lose than the life you thought you needed.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey!
> 
> This is my baby, a project that took way too long but that I love dearly. That being said,
> 
> PLEASE HEED THIS WARNING:
> 
> This fic obviously contacts some heartbreaking content, so read the tags and proceed with your own caution. 
> 
> This story is filled with sweetness and domesticity and ghosts and has a happy ending, as well, so keep this in mind.
> 
> If you decide to continue, I hope you'll leave me a comment with your thoughts!
> 
> Thank you to dearest [VioletPeche](https://archiveofourown.org/users/violetpeche/pseuds/violetpeche) and [Eve](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ddoie/pseuds/ddoie) for beta-ing this for me ♡ It was a big job to ask, and I'm grateful for the support!
> 
> Follow me for HC!
> 
> [cc](https://curiouscat.me/prittleceebs)  
[twt](https://twitter.com/prittleceebs)

Jungwoo awakens from his death on the forest floor.

Dirt sticks to his face and his limbs feel leaden. He is tacky with dried sweat and water- leaves and twigs in his hair and stuck to his clothing. 

He feels thirsty—so thirsty he can’t even speak and his breath comes out as a forced rattle. His eyelids ache but he keeps them open as he tries to drag himself to his feet. His fingertips stretch and catch on moss clutching to the bark of a nearby tree and he slips back down in a heap. His joints scream and twinge as if this is one final ask he cannot make of them.

There’s no confusion in his mind—he is dead. He knows it like it’s the only truth that makes any sense. He doesn’t know where he is. He doesn’t know why his body is heavy and screaming in pain—shouldn’t death save you the inconveniences of a corporeal life? 

But he knows he is dead—remembers the impact, the darkness, and then the truth as though it had been etched into stone and he was reborn with only this ringing true. When he looks down, he can't see his hands, his body, but he feels that he's there—present.

He claws his way through the underbrush—the ground is cold and the soil is loose in places. By the time there’s a break in the trees his arms shake with the effort of crawling through the woods. A great pond opens up before him—surface shining silver under the grey sky. 

His hands push into softer, wetter dirt and with a great heave he pulls himself forward and slides under the surface of the water with a small splash. The water’s surface stills and Jungwoo does not rise.

Awareness comes to him in stages. The trees are a different colour when next he risesabive the surface. There's an old woman at the edge of the pond, and she's idly plucking fiddle-heads from the base of a small copse of trees. Her apron is folded up to her stomach and she has a decent collection of plants collected in the folds of the fabric. 

His eyes are raised above the surface of the water, and slowly he lifts his head out until his shoulders are bared to the sun.

She looks up, eyes hard with sudden fear, before her gaze falls to him and her expression softens.

"Oh hello!" She smiles pleasantly. His own eyes widen as they stare at one another. He looks down and he can see his skin glinting wet in the sun. Something's changed since he’d first awoken. He feels solid, whole.

"Are you having a swim?" She asks, bending down to pluck more plants from the shoreline. 

He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. Terror rises through him and he grasps at his throat, panic spreading over his face.

"Oh, not to worry dear, that might take some time." 

His hands fall back into the water and the woman's gaze shifts away from him as she goes back to her task. 

_I'm not swimming_, he wants to say. _I'm dead._

"Don't fret. It's only a new adventure that awaits you. It's not the end of everything." She speaks with authority, and a twinkle in her eye. 

Jungwoo wants to cry. He's trying to be reasonable but it's a lot to accept that you're dead, but not. And that someone can see you, and maybe even hear you even though you can't speak, and there's _kindness_ there that rips his heart open and makes him want to dissolve back into the water.

"Do you want to stay with me?" she says. 

He does tear up at that, and nods. 

Water sloshes around him and she waves him over to shore. His first steps back on land are unsteady, and she grips his hand in her own. It's a shock, to feel the skin of another. Her life is so clearly present in her body; thrumming with blood, her cheeks are flushed from the light wind. He shakes as she pulls him close, not shy as she wraps her shawl around his shivering nudity. He cries, openly, and she pets his wet hair back from his face and tells him it will be alright.

He learns little in the coming weeks, but he does develop a sense of home. Sometimes he can be seen, and sometimes he cannot. Sometimes she can touch him, a gentle hand in his hair, or a cloak pulled over his shoulders. 

Other times her hands go right through him, and he begrudgingly returns to the water. He learns he needs to return on occasion, to gain a strength of sorts. If he spends the night in the pond, he can return and make her breakfast in the morning all by himself. He'll often have enough strength to do the dishes before his hands start moving through the pots and pans and she chuckles and takes over.

If he spends a day or more in the water, he can help with the laundry and the cleaning. She discourages him from it, because she hates to see him waste his energy on domestic tasks but he loves to keep busy and doesn't know what else to do with himself.

"Act with purpose," She encourages him one day when she sees the gears turning in his head. 

He scoffs at her, but he's still unable to physically speak. She understands him well enough though.

"There's a reason you’re lingering behind, young man.” 

He gazes at her. He is, as always, intrigued by her words.

“Don’t you think there’s more you could do? What a mysterious power it is... to become whole by the waters of a pond no one else can see. What limits are there to what you can do, I wonder?" 

And that gets him thinking.

He quickly realizes he can write, again, like he used to. It’s invigorating, and he jogs down new stories in a shaky chicken-scratch until he finds his strength. Soon his handwriting is back to its impeccable loopy flow, and she praises him and helps him tuck his writings away for safe-keeping. 

Months pass, and he adds to the collection, mostly short stories but an expansive adventure grows in his mind, and he starts detailing out a loose outline.

"I don't read much science fiction, but I'll admit this has a lovely sense of mystery to it. I hope you'll keep going." 

He loves the praise, and he loves her even as she ages before his eyes. She hosts for him without judgement. Encourages him. She never seems scared.

Time passes strangely. There’s no urgency in anything Jungwoo does. Only his frequent return to the pond marks the flow of time, a nagging frustration of needing to rest and recuperate that reminds him of being exhausted at the end of a very long day. Sinking below the water is like letting his head hit a cold pillow and he sleeps and sleeps with little awareness of the passage of the seasons.

-

After only a couple years, Nana receives the first visitor Jungwoo has seen besides her neighbours. He hasn't been back to the pond for a few days when the stranger arrives, and so he remains an invisible shadow in the corner as the woman showers her grandson in kisses at the front door.

He must be in his twenties. His arms are laden with books and a heavy leather laptop bag is slung over his shoulder. He eases it off and places it by the door before standing at his full height, and Jungwoo finds he has to look up ever so slightly.

The man's face is angular with a strong jaw. His lips curve like a cat's and his cupid's bow draws Jungwoo's eye until his gaze, soft and sweet as he accepts his grandmother's affections, catches Jungwoo‘s attention. 

Jungwoo doesn't listen to what they're saying, but the man is only the second human being Jungwoo has seen in years, so he absorbs and memorizes every fascinating detail of his person as he shadows them around the house.

"I should have visited sooner, Nana.” Jungwoo perks up at this, noting the honey-rich timber of the man's voice. 

“There's no good excuse for it. I let Mom get the better of me." He man wrings his own hands, anxious and guilty.

"You're here now, Johnny.” Nana pulls her grandson close, and squishes his cheeks until he laughs. “Let me make you some lunch." She steps out of the room and into the kitchen and all the air leaves with her. Jungwoo has the peculiar feeling that only comes from being stuck in a room with a complete stranger, and feels compelled to fill the silence.

_Johnny_, Jungwoo plays the voice over and over again in his mind. It rings like a bell. 

Johnny looks up, expression curious as his eyes land on the dark shadow of Jungwoo in the corner. He sucks in a breath, but Johnny's eyes continue to search and find nothing. 

Jungwoo memorizes the shape of his lips curved into a confused frown, and sinks through the wall behind him, disappearing into the rain-drenched foliage of the forest.

-

Seasons pass, and with them the house, and the city changes. The forest serves more and more as a sentinel against the chaos of civilization that surrounds them, but Nana doesn't seem worried. 

Jungwoo complains about the noise but Nana calmly explains that he has control over this frustrating sensation, and more. 

With some practice, he soon realizes she's right. He wishes hard, and it's as though their entire plot of land reaches for him, responding. The overgrowth expands both around the pond and the house. The walkway from the front of the cottage becomes shadowed and protected from the outside world.

"Don't forget to let the light in," she reminds him patiently when he struggles to control this strange new power. He’s gotten into the annoying habit of letting his frustration cause extreme bouts of cold and rain. She cuts back the bushes that threaten to cover her front steps, and he apologizes. He likes her best when the sun can gleam in her hair.

_I will_, he promises. 

She is more willowy than ever. Her grey hair hangs in a long braid over her shoulder. Her wrists extend from her sweater like fine scrolls of papyrus and her smile is soft and watery. _It will soon be her time_, Jungwoo realizes, and mourns because he selfishly can no longer stand the idea of being alone.

Johnny visits more often, bringing all manner of trinkets with him. Food, jams, books that he apparently has written himself. This peaks Jungwoo's interest, and he steals them to read when it is dark and the house is silent. 

Johnny becomes an almost constant presence, and Jungwoo starts to miss him when he is gone. Time seems to slow down and run ahead recklessly all at the same time. He starts to be plagued with worry anytime he has to disappear back into the woods and bathe in the water, haa to sleep. What if he’ll miss a visit from Johnny, or what if Nana falls and there’s no one there to help her up?

The air grows crisp with autumn wind and Jungwoo becomes used to Johnny being a mainstay in the house. He is almost never not there, and Jungwoo rests a little easier knowing Nana and Johnny both are content, safe. Johnny cooks and cleans and builds fires. Jungwoo does all he can to make the house at it’s very best. The sun shines through gaps in the trees and warms the wood of the back patio so Johnny seeks it out more and more often. He stretches in the sun and murmurs to Nana about the unseasonable warmth and Jungwoo stretches beside him, invisible. 

It feels like his family has grown. He watches Johnny tell jokes to his grandmother, and braid her hair, and bring her soup and feels full, himself, with the warmth of familiarity.

More and more often, Johnny's expression is one of vague concern and Jungwoo yearns to soothe it away. Still, he feels a kinship. He worries the same way. They are both suffering, but even as Nana’s light fades she shines on them both. 

Jungwoo clings to her when Johnny leaves. He does not know what he will do when she is gone.

"You won't be alone," she promises one night when he tearfully expresses his fear. Again he is clinging to her, shamelessly curled against her side before the fire in the living room. She pets his damp hair back from his face and smiles at him. He is always seems perpetually damp in the first few hours after returning from the pond. 

He senses their time growing thin. He’ll be departing for a whole week this time, fitfully dreaming in the depths of the water. He wants to be solid for her when she leaves. He wants to hold her through it. He begs her to hold on and she gives him a watery smile and kisses his cheek.

“Come back soon!” She chuckles brightly, like she always does.

When he returns, the house is empty. 

There's a smell inside that's different, an absence of her and an influx of strangeness. Visitors he didn't get to see. The floor creaks differently.

She's gone.

He's inconsolable. He wails and folds himself into her furniture. For days there's only him, and he's cut deep that she lied to him. She said he wouldn't be alone. He doesn't know how it works, doesn't understand. 

He fruitlessly holds onto the idea that maybe she thought she would come back too, like him. He searches for her in the pond but she's not there. It’s only ever been him. She didn't have anything holding her back, and so she leaves, light as a feather. Just as she should. Only the emptiness of the house remains. 

He cries until all of his energy is consumed, but still he doesn't steep himself in the healing waters in the forest. There’s something about mourning that makes Jungwoo feels like he deserves nothing. He wants to fade away into the fog. Perhaps, if he gives himself enough time, he will. If he’s lucky his loneliness will dissolve along with him.

He is only a shell, barely-there, when he hears the click of a key in the front door. 

Johnny carries a heaviness to him as he crosses the threshold, but Jungwoo is so desperate for contact that with a quiet cry he barrels towards Johnny in the foyer, yearning to be folded into the warmth of his arms. There’s nothing left, no energy, no impact, and he passes right through him. He’s furious, inconsolable. Exhausted. 

Johnny neatly places his bag by the front door and rubs his arms against the sudden chill.

"It's cold in here, isn't it?" 

His tone is conversational, but Jungwoo knows better than to think Johnny is speaking to him. Johnny has never seen him, not really, during their few close encounters. Nana has always told her grandson that she was never alone and he had humoured her, chuckling and nodding, even with the knowing glint in her eye.

"Are you haunted?" Johnny had asked one day, patient smile stretched over his face. She had only smiled back, and Jungwoo had _longed_ from the corner of the room to make himself known. He hated that patient smile and he knew she did too, even if Johnny meant nothing by it.

"Don't be so frightened of him," she whispered to him later after Johnny had made his exit. "He is my grandson, and he will understand. He will take it in stride." 

Jungwoo had hardly believed that. Nana was a witch, or something like it. She must have been, Jungwoo was certain. Something different, something extra to other humans. She didn't make potions, and she didn't practice fortune telling or magic, but she was different. He imagined it was something others could not accept as well, which was perhaps why she has sought isolation.

_You're different. You can see me._

"Others can see you too, if you'll let them.” She took his hand in her own. “And they'll hear you too, if you try hard enough.”

He was doubtful, then, but remembers that she had proven to him the extent of his influence once before. Trying patiently to remind him that he was always capable of unknown, magical things.

"Don't hide from him when I'm gone." 

Then, Jungwoo hadn’t wanted to talk about that, and he slipped through the wall with a fretful sigh. She watched him go, always sad for him. Always hopeful.

Jungwoo often felt that when Nana had been alive the house had carried a sort of chaotic life to it. Even with just the two of them, there always seemed to be something going on, even if Nana was silent and contemplative. 

Johnny talks to himself quite a bit, Jungwoo realizes, but the house carries a sense of calm. Its unfamiliar. Additionally, he is impeccably neat. He doesn't know what to do with all the bits and bobs in the house, but he tidies and cleans all the same. He doesn't remove anything, but he tries to make a home and a Jungwoo realizes Johnny will be staying. 

With a strange happy tightness in his chest he realizes he won’t be alone, any longer.

-

She’s the only living grandparent Johnny had and she had been an enigma—despised by her own daughter but beloved by all others. Eccentric and talented and hardworking. Evidence of this is present throughout her home. Perhaps this is why Johnny’s mother, who lives a structured, discerning lifestyle, resented her mother. 

Johnny remembers Nana standing willowy yet unbending in the garden. Her hair swaying in a long and messy grey braid over one shoulder, pulled out of its original tight plaint. Her forehead gleaming with sweat but a wide grin stretching her features. She liked to work, liked to stay busy. 

The house is old and gorgeous in a well-developed residential neighbourhood. Huge oaks ride the property’s edge across an expansive front lawn, and their boughs hang mysterious shadows across the front garden and porch. Amongst busy roadways, and paved walkways of the neighbourhood, it is quiet in their yard. The house itself among towering, wealthy homes than resemble mansions, doesn’t fit in.

In a neighbourhood with retiring lawyers and doctors, Johnny doesn’t fit in either, but his neighbours dote on him when he walks by, always eager to hear how his week is going. He’s too young to be living in a house like this, all by himself. But their pride when they ask him what he’s working on is evident. They hope their own sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters will end up like him some day—genuine, happy, successful. 

Perhaps a little less reclusive.

Everything in the house glistens and glows in the filtered light that streams in through the trees. Every window sill has ceramic pots, baubles and little glass jars that hold stones, water, plants. Even in the kitchen, the brushed stainless steel of the double sink glimmers against the well-worn stained wood of the countertops. There are expanses of fabric: gathered linens at every window’s adage that soften the right angles of the window frames that hold glittering minerals and polished gems. Their light sends little rainbows dancing across the floor. 

Every step he takes through the home, a light is shifting and catching. He enters the living room and the gems and strings that hang from the windows sway. He has the impression that he’s just missed someone, their presence still tangible in the room.

Parts of the house have a magic that Johnny can’t place. He spends the most time in these rooms, daydreaming as he takes his morning meander with his first cup of coffee. Almost always from seven thirty five until seven forty five, only minutes after he’s awoken, and the hardwood creaks a familiar path as he drifts by the windows in the house, drawn to trinkets he didn’t notice the day before.

Nana’s house is a wonderland of natural textures given structure by the human hand. Evidence of her avid obsession with knitting and carpentry are present everywhere; the linen closet stocked high with hand-knit blankets. Ornate mirror frames carved and stained by hand are in nearly every room.

Johnny runs his fingers over all of these things, quiet. The house breathes ever so slightly around him, settling under his weight as he makes his way to his study to start work.

His desk is adorned by only two things: a well-worn notebook filled with text, flipped open to a page half-completed, and a tablet propped up on a stand in front of it’s own slim keyboard. The desk is huge, but bare, and it’s the only furniture Johnny has brought with him. 

He doesn’t know how to decorate it amongst everything else. It sits like some kind of other- all straight hard lines and dark wood. Like him, it doesn’t quite fit in. He imagines with some effort he can make it all come together. Maybe some flowers from the garden, perhaps even a desk lamp with a warm glow. He makes a mental list.

He settles down to work, and sips at his coffee while he re-reads the last few pages of notes. The sun drifts across the floor and warms his naked toes where they stick out from underneath the desk. He starts typing, posture good, intent in his sure keystrokes.

In the afternoon he rises with a stretch, a shiver running through his spine at the way the silence of the house seems to be creeping in, empty space watching him work until he feels too unnerved to continue. 

It could just be the self-doubt, which often pays a visit at least once a day, and makes him have to step away from his work until a zing of inspiration will try again.

-

Something begins on the edges of his awareness. Like with most things, his brain supplies a logical, easy explanation. He’s mourning. He feels out of place. He doesn’t know, yet, the sounds of the house.

Still, there are things that require a concrete explanation. Johnny is calm and mild-mannered above all else, but when he begins to wake every day to find a small yellow flower on the top of his dresser, he knows better than to ignore it.

Anything believable he tries to come up with isn’t possible. He’s mourning, but he isn’t crazy. Small things, like his laundry being folded when he doesn't remember doing it, are bad enough. Soon he wakes to find his dishes done, his study re-arranged.

He had allowed himself to believe, for one hysterical moment, that Nana had remained in the house. That the magic she had so clearly carried when alive had allowed her to haunt her own home, and Johnny too. 

He’s be pleased if not for the fact that it can’t be her. He’s not a prude- it isn’t the idea of ghosts that bother him, not really. It’s the fact that the folded blankets in the closet are piled in an entirely new order. The dishes are arranged to dry in the drying rack in a way that doesn’t respect Nana’s ceramic plates. She never would have stood for it.

The same flower there, day after day. Freshly picked, laying in the sun. Today the high-gloss wood of his white dresser stares back at him, bare. There is no little yellow flower, just his own assortment of belongings that have steadily been growing. 

Mostly it’s a stack of folded wool sweaters that had belonged to his grandfather. Nana had knitted almost all of them, and could never part with them. Despite his discomfort with keeping unnecessary items, Johnny knows he can’t part with them either. Always one to seek structure in his life, he finds himself admiring their textures, their colours. He unfolds an oversized, cream cable-knit and pulls it on. He’s built, but it strikes him how much bigger his grandfather must have been. Somehow taller. Johnny wishes he could have known him.

He steps away from his dresser, oddly let down to find that he hasn’t been left a gift this morning. But when he steps into his study, he finds a different surprise. 

Perched atop his slim black keyboard is a wrapped bunch of small blue flowers, no bigger than his palm. 

Nemophilas. A knitted stem keeps them tied together, and the intent in this detail alone rocks through Johnny like a train. An anxious weight settles in his chest. This can’t be explained, or ignored.

He’s long past assuming anyone has ever broken in, but the knowledge that it took hands, _fingers_ to delicately tie a knot with a flower stem does make the blood drain from his face. 

His first instinct is to bolt, but instead he picks up the small bundle and turns them over in his fingers. A gorgeous royal blue, they look freshly picked and healthy. He carries them with him as he starts his morning routine.

Some days he doesn’t get anything at all. No flowers, anyway. Still, every day, the familiarity of another presence makes itself known.

As he nears the end of his working day, he often feels himself watched as if it’s a physical weight. His glasses reflect the screen of his tablet, and ice clinks in a shallow glass of scotch to his right. 

By all accounts it’s peaceful. He’s weary from writing so much, today especially. His wrists ache. He leans over his screen, good posture long-gone with the day’s exhaustion and he feels it, right there, over his shoulder. He re-reads the last few lines of his work, edges of awareness prickling with the weight of a presence, a gaze that follows his own. 

He reasons with himself it’s probably the physical manifestation of the pressure he holds over himself but the cliche makes him laugh, and suddenly the presence is gone. 

Again he’s noticeably alone. Just as much as he ever was in this perfectly calm and quiet house, he reasons. He wonders if his publisher would accept the explanation that he is steadily going crazy when he has to tell her his next chapter might be a bit late.

Sometimes he wakes up and there's something different about his kitchen, his routine. Usually he shuffles down the stairs and his feet pad on the cold floor as he meanders from the coffee maker to the fridge for milk. He’ll move to the sink to stand and sway, steadily waking up while his coffee brews. 

By no means is it a tedious process. For the most part he enjoys it, when there are no particular deadlines rushing his relaxing morning flow, and he enjoys smelling the coffee as it brews. He watches the sun as it filters through the trees in his backyard.

There are days when he awakens and there is something out of place, something almost imperceptibly different. His mug, his favourite mug, is already on the counter next to the coffee maker. Sometimes he'll notice the ceramic appears to be polished to an unexpected shine his own washing-by-hand often fails to accomplish. Johnny is tidy by nature. Every night he makes sure his kitchen is clean, dishes are put away. In the morning, collecting his mug from the cupboard is normal.

He picks up the mug, tilting it in his hands, and sets it down again, pleased. _Don't look good fortune in the face_, he thinks. He’s still too heavy from sleep to fret, to over-analyze.

He might be haunted by a particularly friendly, or helpful ghost. If anything, their goals are the same: for Johnny to get caffeinated, and take his rounds around the house. Eventually, to write.

It bothers him less than it did at the beginning, this nagging thought that he is never quite by himself in this house. One day every little thing could be explained, and the truth that he simply has memory problems and a penance for misplacing things could be the explanation he's been looking for. 

He's about fifty percent sure that it's not that. 

It's a feeling that is nearly indescribable, but creeps under his skin like a physical presence when a human knows they are not alone. And Johnny has always trusted his gut. 

So every day he starts to wait for this moment, the brief time where something seems to thin between his world and some other. Where he gets a glimpse at something he shouldn't. 

Perhaps it's just an awareness that something has been moved, or re-organized. His spector, for example, seems to despise the way he organizes his tea tins. Johnny moves them back three times before giving up and allowing his shadow full reign of all kitchen organization. Truthfully, they seem better at it anyway.

Johnny always wants to move where the superfluous decorations are placed in the windows, on the walls. Despite the magic they bring to the house, Johnny knows that if he'd started from scratch they'd never have been there in the first place. 

The other presence that drifts by on the edges of his awareness seems to have an affinity for them, and so Johnny leaves them where they are. He dusts them so that they sparkle magnificently in the sunlight and they continue to sway whenever he enters a room, having just been appreciated by another set of eyes.

Those thinning moments where time seems to still, where Johnny wonders if he'll disappear in this small house, lost in time alongside his ever-present guest, are sometimes less subtle. The flowers, the mug, the organizing of the tins. These grow to become a somewhat more normal constant. It happens steadily, and Johnny doesn't realize it at first, but things are escalating. 

First, something he couldn't quite touch or grasp. An awareness, the weight of a gaze. Then something that’s been moved, replaced or changed, or... gifted. And then, the touches.

So soft, so brief Johnny wonders if they’re even really there at all. 

He sits in front of his tablet, and his writing is picking up speed. He's on a roll, and even if the content isn't perfect at this point he just needs to get his ideas out on paper lest he lose them. Even though its rough, the prose is captivating. When he finally pauses to re-read the last couple pages, a satisfied smile stretches across his face and he settles back in his chair, pleased. 

Just barely, he feels it, starting almost like a shiver at the back of his neck. Like fingertips, the sensation drags across his shoulder and then disappears. The room hums sub-audibly with pleasure, a satisfaction Johnny feels reflected in himself. Before him, the screen of his tablet shifts on its own, sliding up a couple pages and every few second sliding down, down until his last sentence. His heart doesn't freeze up like it used to. There nothing to be scared of here.

_Its good._

"Yeah..." Johnny murmurs. "That was a good one."

\---

When the days stretch too long, Johnny wanders out of the house, and fiddles in the garden. The plants need his attention and never being one for plant-raising, it takes countless hours of researching plant species and what they need to help make them thrive. 

He's wasted precious time after moving in, failing to really turn his attention to his yard and so it takes far more time and work to bring it back to its former glory. He’s lived here for almost seven months and summer is already almost over. Some flowers are past their peak. He gives them love and attention as well, though, because he knows this will help them thrive.

His hard work eventually uncovers a stone pathway, weathered and half-covered by moss. Mis-matched stones that are flat and polished are arranged in a winding path through the garden and eventually disappear amongst the tall trees at the back of the property. 

Being so close to the city, Johnny has never really imagined that there'd be much beyond the copse of forest. Even now, he looks up and sees just barely visible through the leaves the soaring white apartment building that towers over the forest and his home. He sets down his garden equipment and steps back inside the house.

Writing isn't coming to him today, but he’s never been picky about inspiration. 

He makes another coffee and showers. His hair drips wet on his shoulders and his feet leave wet imprints on the hardwood as he wanders the first floor of the home, nursing his coffee and letting himself dry off as his mind wanders. 

His towel snug around his waist, he pauses in front of the kitchen window and stares into the trees again, considering where the path leads. The crystals in the windows sway and twist before him, for no reason at all.

"All right." He says, and wanders off to get dressed.

Wrapped in a light sweater and a ripped pair of jeans, Johnny feels the last threads of civilization disappear from his awareness after only a few short minutes following the path. It's like another world, shadowed and damp, with bending trees growing lichen and mushrooms. The ground is soft underfoot. 

Gone entirely are the sounds of the city. No horns, no pigeons, no quiet chatter from his neighbours. Just the soft crunch of the mulch beneath his feet and the whispers of the leaves, swaying above.

He doesn't know how long he's been walking, but it's a peaceful jaunt. The passage of time becomes foggy, and it’s only after his mind has gone peacefully quiet does he stumble upon a clearing. The sky opens up, grey-blue and clear and Johnny's feet slip over rocks and pebbles instead of forest detritus. A large circular pond stretches out to a far shore. Fifty or sixty feet at most, Johnny reckons. The water is crystal clear and glimmers from the dim fall sun on it’s surface.

"Huh." Johnny's murmurs, stepping closer. 

He sees no other paths extending into the woods on the other side. Only his own. Perhaps this was his nana's own private little pond, although she'd never mentioned it. Johnny had never once been invited back here. The strange feeling that settles over him as he stands there makes him wonder if his Nana even knew about it- but it's impossible, he thinks, that she wouldn't have felt inclined to follow the path as well. He adopted his sense of adventure from her.

The sun is waning and the air is a bit cool but the water, when he dips his fingers in, is warm and inviting. There’s a blanketing silence around him, and Johnny feels a sense of privacy. _It’s my day to relax, _he reasons, and so he strips off his clothes piece by piece and slowly steps into the water. 

He's never been one to be shy about nudity but as he walks in up to his thighs, he gets the familiar impression he often does, that he’s not alone. He tries to casually cover himself as he slips under the water up to his waist.

The water is divine, almost slippery warm along his skin. He can see the bottom of the pond, clean and swaying with several pond plants that must keep the water clear. Lily Pads dot the edges of the far side, and some remaining lilies are opened to the sun, edges curling from the slight chill in the air as their season comes to an end.

Johnny floats. The sun drifts across the sky, and the silence bathes him in a contentedness he hasn’t allowed himself for months. The water holds him, kissing his skin. For a while he's drifts, letting his mind go blissfully empty and the awareness he usually feels of being alone seems to dilute itself, become thinner. Like the water, it spreads out to fill the space, and wraps around Johnny like a silk veil without any discernible weight.

Then again, with more intent, he feels it. 

As though someone has stepped into the water with him, there's a shift. He does not open his eyes when he feels the water ripple around him. There is no sound. No splashing. Even the birds are quiet. There is only the rising hum of cicadas that lifts and settles.

The touch is so clearly solid and real that Johnny jerks. The water ripples around him again, but with an eye cracked open, he calms himself. There's nobody with him, nothing visible to the naked eye. A quick check in the water tells him there are no fish. 

Another few moments as Johnny's heart rate settles, and it's back, less shy. Fingertips that slip over his ribs, pressure like that of a stream, cool but not impersonal. The touch is exploratory, and goosebumps start at the back of Johnny’s knees and rise right up the back of his ears. He floats, still, with his eyes wide open and stares up into the break of the trees in the clearing. Pushing down the mania that makes his chest flutter, Johnny lets himself be touched.

It’s over almost as soon as it begins, and like most moments he's had since starting his new life here, it's almost possible to pretend he's imagining things. There's the lingering feeling of something else, an other, but it’s soon gone, spooked. For one of the first times in a while, Johnny feels oddly alone.

It isn't bad per-se, but it is strange, and his head swims a little as he rights himself in the water and gradually makes his way back to shore. It feels so different, such a clear emptiness and silence that it puts into startling contrast exactly how dogged every step he's taken has been since moving in.

In some ways he wonders if he ever fully accepted it before, even before his nana passed. He visited often growing up, ever since his high school years, and it always felt like a home. He doesn't remember it ever looking anything other than how it looks now. Always mysterious, always magical, always filled with attention-catching odds and ends. 

He’d never felt alone because, frankly, he never had been. 

Nana Ruby had always been there to welcome him, to cook for him and to share stories with him late into the night. In the last couple years since the beginning of his success as an author he had visited more often. She had always encouraged his writing and there was never any shortage of perfect writing nooks to be found throughout her house.

He regrets the handful of years he had let his life get in the way. His mother’s words, hateful, burned in the back of his mind. When Nana had been alone, had another presence stepped in to care for her? Johnny feels the poison ache of guilt.

After her funeral, he had stepped into her home without her there to greet him and had never felt the gnawing emptiness of a home abandoned, like he had expected.

He rises from the water and shakes off as much wetness as he can. Belatedly he acknowledges the impromptu dip means he’s not prepared with a towel or much of anything to dry himself off with. He peels off his soaked underwear and struggles into his jeans, throwing his sweater over his shoulder before stepping back onto the path and through the trees.

The cold comes in quickly - the crisp smell of autumn approaching with the early setting sun. He hurries along, teeth chattering. He can't reach the house soon enough, and by the time his long strides have his feet thumping on the back patio and through his back door, his skin is pale with the cold. He drops his clothes at the door and stumbles through the house, hissing.

"Fuck" he mutters, rubbing his arms, and briefly forgets that he might not live alone as he thumps loudly up the stairs. He stands nude in his small walk-in closet and grabs the first acceptable things he sees - an oversized hoodie and fleece-lined leggings. He throws his pile of clothes on the floor in the bathroom and turns on the shower.

The water sluices hot over his skin and his relief leaves him in a shaky exhale. It seems a bit early for the night's approach to bring such swift cold, but it's his own fault for acting on impulse. With the end of summer, the sun disappears earlier and earlier, and he’s suffering it. He turns the heat up as high as he can take it and stands, allowing the water to pull the weather's ache from his bones.

It isn't until later when he curled up in his clean, warm clothes with a hot toddy held tight to his chest that his thoughts come back to him, slightly less scattered. 

A fire crackles merrily in the hearth at his feet, but the tip of his nose is cold. He rests his lip on the mug's edge and lets the steam wash over his face. He thinks on the flowers he finds throughout his house. The pendulum sway of the minerals in the window. The lone, clean coffee cup set at the same angle beside his coffee maker each morning. His tablet's screen moving of its own accord, and the _appreciation_ he had felt in the house that day. 

The memory of a curious touch drifting over his naked skin. He doesn't allow himself to blush, but something uncertain settles in his stomach as he tries to parse through these moments.

The presence is back, just barely hovering at the edge of his awareness. Johnny huffs out a sigh, not sure how to acknowledge it, and gazes into the fire, willing himself to warm up. 

He unashamedly longs to curl his body against another's, and be held until his fingers stop feeling like ice. While he's never been shy about his affections, and his professional success has certainly brought a certain level of attention, he hasn't dated much in his life. It's not something he cares to indulge often, but he does long to wrap his arms around another body, to grow tired in a tangle of limbs.

He looks to his left to the empty space on the couch and lays down his hand, palm up. Already he feels colder and he aches to rub his fingers together to encourage blood flow, but a thought is stuck in the back of his mind, persistent and silly.

"Hold my hand?" He asks the empty room quietly. Embarrassment prickles at him but he closes his eyes and breathes in the steam of his mug. 

Seconds pass, and then minutes. 

The skin of Johnny's palm buzzes with anticipation, but nothing ever comes. He curls his fingers and pulls his fist back to his chest, under the blanket draped over his lap. 

He tries not to feel a little let down, mostly because this might confirm the fact he's been imagining things, hallucinating. But also there's that emptiness, the acknowledgment that the comfort of having been _not_ alone for so long might be replaced with a loneliness he realizes he didn't expect.

He naps for a short while by the fire and when only embers glow in the dark room, he wakes and stretches his limbs. Sighing tiredly, he closes the grate on the fireplace and steps unsteadily upstairs, legs stiff with sleep and the cold he hasn't quite chased away. 

Exhaustion takes him almost immediately when he slides under the comforter, and with the last remaining vestiges of consciousness he wraps it tight around himself and lets himself drift under.

He dreams of water, of a stream with a fast current. 

The water is like ice, but the current doesn't pull his body, instead rushing around him like he's an immovable rock. Even so, he’s frightened and uncomfortable in the cold. It feels like his feet will be pulled out from under him at any moment.

When a hand takes his own under the water and pulls him towards shore, he goes willingly, gratefully. Exhaustion makes his muscles thrum and he sags over the smooth pebbles of the water's edge. His saviour comes to him, spreading out at his side and laying their head on his chest. Its hazy in a dream, to remember details, but Johnny feels the wet strands of the man's hair through his fingers like they’re real.

Consciousness comes to him in stages. 

The sun is warming his exposed ankles as they hang off the edge of the bed. His legs shift under the covers, and the body against his own curls tighter against his back, arm warm over his waist. 

The air smells heavenly in the mornings, the bed's cotton warm and fragrant against his nose, the plants in his bedroom rising to greet the sun. Content, he allows sleep to take him again.

When next he wakes, the birds are making a racket in the backyard, and Johnny blearily blinks against the sun that's spread across the room to settle on his face. He buries himself into the comforter with a groan and wiggles his toes, willing blood flow back through his body. 

A thought, an image, hits him sideways and his eyes widen as he sits up in bed. He stares down at the bedspread but there’s nothing, nothing at all. The image is so clear in Johnny's mind that it's more unexpected to see nothing than to see what is in his mind's eye. There's no ruffle of covers around another body. There's no pale slide of thigh extended out from under the blanket along his own.

He hastily gets out of bed and into his slippers. The hardwood is still cold, and he makes his way downstairs to get the fire going again. It won't be until almost midday before the sun can effectively heat the house again. His coffee maker is on when he enters the kitchen, and the alluring aroma of his morning coffee almost distracts him from the realization that his coffee cup is already steaming on the counter, the perfect shade of tan from the exact right glug of milk it takes to get there.

He doesn't stare for too long, uttering a breathless thank you into the air as he takes his mug to his study and settles in at his desk. There's no time now to slowly wake up, or meander around the house like he would on a normal morning. He pushes down all feelings of discomfort, and stares at the blank screen of his tablet.

He raises his fingertips to the keyboard, but they hover, hesitant. He glances to his coffee and his mind loses focus. What does he expect his specter will do - poison him? Seduce him and _then_ poison him? Still, it seems a little ballsy to sip coffee made by a ghost. The act itself carries no self-preservation, but it's how his Nana raised him.

_Make friends with all who you meet in this world, Johnny. No matter how unexpected their presence in your life._ He swirls the dregs of coffee at the bottom of the mug with a bemused shake of his head and finishes his cup before pushing it aside.

Today, thoughts and words come to him almost effortlessly. He has things swirling around his mind that need out, and he gets it all down in a rush, careless of spelling and grammar. 

Sensations he needs to describe, threads he needs to pluck at. He hasn't felt the anxious mutterings of unresolved thoughts in his head for a while. His writing in recent years has taken on a thoughtful narrative, rich in descriptors but patient and observant. What he writes now comes out almost in a trance, and by the time he slows, it's three in the afternoon and his fingers ache. His nose is cold again, and his stomach gurgles angrily.

Maybe its a bad immune system, or maybe it's yesterday's late afternoon dip in the mystery pond, but Johnny starts to sniffle as he cuts vegetables for a stew in the kitchen. His nose is red, and even through two layers of socks his toes still wiggle, trying to get warm. 

He stokes the fire all afternoon and abandons his writing, wrung out from a day of pages and pages of hapless nonsense that may later turn into something useful. He pulls away chunks of bread from a homemade loaf a neighbour dropped off earlier in the week and leans against the kitchen counter as he chews numbly. He barely tastes it at all.

The stew bubbles away and he finally makes his rounds in the house, feeling it owed it after this morning's anxiety driven rush. He wraps a blanket around his shoulders and floats room to room, checking on the plants that never wither. He carries a mug of water and pokes at some of them before giving them a small drink. 

The baubles sway in the windowsills as Johnny tidies up, folding the laundry he has piled in a chair. He stacks papers and sets them aside, and he dusts everywhere he goes, treating every book and sculpture on the bookcase with care.

He's sweeping and mopping the hardwood when his hand slips and the mop falls from his grasp. The handle bounces against a small desk by his front window and it jostles before coming to rest again on three legs. 

With a sigh, he leans down to pick up the mop and dizziness creeps in as he sniffles and rubs at his nose. He looks up, and stark against the dark underside of the table, the corner of a piece of paper is visible. It sticks out from a strange black seam build into the wood, and he sets the mop down so he can run his thumb along it. 

It shifts slightly and with a small little push it slides free, falling into Johnny's waiting hand. A small drawer, open faced and the size of a book leaves a square hole where it had been locked to the underside of the unassuming lapdesk.

He pulls the box towards him, and inside are a stack of folded papers, aged and cream in colour. They're tied with a simple string, blue and white striped. His fingertips run over the paper - it’s smooth. Printer paper. Behind him, the alarm on his stove sings unpleasantly to announce the end of the stew's cooking time. 

He stands unsteadily and sets the drawer on the table top, returning to the kitchen to turn off the heat and tuck in. His body is weak and achy, and he takes a bowl to the living room to sit on the couch. The blanket is pulled up as high as he can manage while he eats in front of the fire and momentarily forgets the box of papers in the foyer.

He rises when his stomach is full and drowsiness pulls at the edges. For the first time he promises himself to do the dishes in the morning and makes his way back to bed, early at seven pm. He leaves the lights off and curls up under the comforter, face pressing into the pillow as he takes a rattly breath.

Definitely a cold, he thinks groggily as he pulls the sheets over his head.

When the bed dips and a warm arm settles over his waist, he sighs softly. His hair is gently pushed off of his dewy forehead, and he falls into dreams unfettered, content.

-

The room is filled with crisp warm sunlight. Warmer than the barest flutter of snow outside his window would suggest. The type of warm that comes only from his fire being lit. The smell of food wafts up the stairs, and Johnny pulls himself from the bed. His head throbs like he's been hit by a brick, and he gratefully swallows the aspirin he finds on his bedside table with a full glass of water.

His mind clearer, he follows the delicious smell downstairs to his kitchen. There's reheated stew from yesterday next to a cup of black coffee - not the way he usually takes it but better if he's fighting a cold. The dishes from yesterday are drying in the rack. He sits unsteadily on a stool at his kitchen island and slumps over the counter, groaning into the warm wood.

_What's the matter with you, hmm?_

Worry pokes at his mind, but its not his own. He rubs his face with his hands and sits up, all colour gone from his face. He feels like garbage, and now a ghost is playing maid to him. Can he be fully hallucinating now, is being sick a good enough reason? He sneezes into his elbow and then groans, headache beating persistently against his skull.

_Oh_

Light as a feather, a touch drifts over Johnny's neck and he stiffens, anxious. He lets his head fall into his arms on the counter and controls his breathing as the touch moves, gentle, goosebumps rising in its wake. 

Its a touch of comfort, and he forces himself to relax. It's barely a physical sensation at all - more so the usual awareness, but there's nothing to explain the way his hair is pushed back from his forehead and the back of a hand, invisible, presses at the sweaty skin there.

"I must be losing my mind." Johnny laments, but stays still under the ministrations. There's humour in the air, a grin he can't see. He closes his eyes and breathes, and sits up when the touch disappears.

Quiet, he pulls the bowl of leftovers close and slowly works through it. Hunger evades him, but his body needs the energy. The coffee sits well, bringing a brightness to his eyes and he soon leaves the kitchen to meander the house with his mug, chewing on his thoughts as he moves room to room.

The entranceway is darker this time of day, but under the light of a window Johnny sees the tiny drawer he found yesterday, still piled with paper. He tucks it under his arm and returns to his study to investigate.

He starts by pulling out each wrapped stack of papers - there are three, roughly the same size. There are a few rough pages and he looks at those first, opening the brittle paper carefully. The first is filled with handwriting so absolutely perfect at first Johnny can't read it. He sips at his coffee and tries to make out what's been documented: a list of references, it looks like. Books, with the author's name underlined beside. It’s a swirly, handsome cursive. Johnny traces the curl of a C with with his thumb.

Curious, he pulls his tablet forward on the table and starts searching the books. None are written in the last 20 years, but they're apparently written by some pretty prolific writers. Books on quantum theory and brain plasticity. Scientific forays into tales of love and loss and theory. Johnny searches a few of them on Amazon and orders them to read himself.

He opens up the next page, and then he feels it again in the room, his guest, hovering nearby. Anxiety floats through the room, and Johnny pauses with the paper and looks up. He can't see anyone of course, but he sets the paper down.

"Is this yours?" He asks, but there's no response. Only that growing anxiety again.

"Will you be upset if I read it?" No response again, but the mood of the room changes slightly. Uncertain.

Johnny picks up the paper again and carefully unfolds it. It appears to be the start of some kind of timeline. There are names and locations circled, many of which are not on earth but are noted in a roadmap of their galaxy. Interesting.

"Science fiction..." Johnny murmurs, running his fingers over the page. A hint of annoyance creeps in at the edges, and he smiles. "I like science fiction."

The morning passes slowly, and he forgets a bit about his cold, even when he looks up to find a box of tissues at the edge of his desk and blows his nose gratefully. He reads and reads, unwrapping each stack of paper carefully and absorbing the pages and pages of writing. 

It's draft work for an absolutely mind-boggling story that takes place in the stars. The characters are tragic and interesting, their story dark and filled with immeasurable trauma. It all overlays the mechanism of scientific theory that's yet to be quite proven but just on the right side of likely that it seems plausible. Amazement lights up in Johnny's brain with the possibilities.

The writing is intuitive, observant. Prickling with unaddressed pain.

It's nearly afternoon when he sets the pages aside. He’s hit with the strange despondent feeling that comes after finishing a good book, or when the lights come on after a long movie and it feels like the whole world is out there and you’re not quite ready to face it. 

Johnny realizes he's spent several days not venturing further than his front stoop, or the woods and pond behind his home. He’s forgotten there are likely people who will want to know if he's still alive.

He calls his mom.

"I'm sorry to hear that you're sick, honey. It's not drafty in that old house, is it?" She's never been fond of the idea of him moving into Nana's house after her passing and had really only spent a handful of hours visiting inside in the ten years Nana had lived there. _Something doesn't feel right in here._ She'd said with a shiver.

"It's fine, mom. Its well insulated in here. I have the fire going most days anyway." He murmurs, stretched out on the couch and picking at the fabric. "I'm well taken care of." He continues, staring up at the ceiling.

"If you're sure. It's awfully lonely out there. How's work going? Lots of writing?" Her voice is laced with the usual concern, and their conversation goes much the same as it often does - Do you have enough money? How's your health? Are you getting enough time outdoors? Don’t forget to buy groceries...

He hums his assent.

"I've been working faster than ever. There’s... something about this place. I found a pond out back, you know?" 

She responds with a noise of confusion.

"A pond...? Johnny... there’s no pond back there."

He chuckles, stretching his legs.

"What are you talking about? Its back in the forest."

"Johnny - that forest goes back at most... 500 yards? I'm fairly sure theres no pond."

Johnny makes an inconsequential noise. It’s unlikely his mother has spent much time in the forest.

"Anyway - I'm heading in to the city next week. Do you and dad want to meet up for dinner?"

She agrees, and he tells her he loves her and to have a good week. He sets his phone on the floor and stretches out, pinching the bridge of his nose. He's completely stuffed up, and he feels a bit despondent as his energy is sapped from him little by little. He needs to write. He needs to pull weeds in the garden. He needs to do the dishes. Instead, he yawns and lets his eyes close.

Water runs cold over his naked body and in the pre-dawn half-light, pink and white water lilies glow near orange and stick to his skin. The air is cold, and damp, but the first rays of sun burn at the morning fog, and he floats. 

The first touch is only a ripple of water that shudders around his body. The next is a hand pressing tentatively to his chest, fingers dragging. It feels right, normal, and he lets his head fall back into the water as the touch becomes more confident. Arms wrap around his waist and pull him close. A naked body presses against his own with hands that explore gently and legs that twine with his own.

It's pleasure, the way a soft mouth pressed hot kisses to the juncture of his neck, hesitant as though tasting him. 

He responds dazedly, his own palms spreading wide over a narrow waist as he's pulled into a searching kiss. The stranger's mouth moves softly against his own, and it feels familiar. There's a taste he knows, an intent to the way he's pulled ever-closer that rings intimate and safe. 

Arousal coils slowly in his stomach and he sighs a breath against slick lips when a hand explores the creamy length of his naked thigh.

_"Johnny..."_ breathed against his throat, and he awakens with a jolt.

His eyes are itchy and his back aches. He grits back a wince when his cock, half hard, brushes uncomfortably against the inside of his jeans.

"Fucking hell..." He stands, adjusting himself awkwardly in the living room. 

He still can't breathe properly, and he grabs some tissues to blow his nose as he climbs the stairs, steps awkward as his dick hangs persistent and swollen against his thigh. He's muttering to himself even as he steps under the hot spray of the shower, fragments of his dream creeping in at the edges. He ignores his cock hanging heavily between his legs and stands under the spray, urging the steam to clear his head.

The sudden memory of familiar lips pressed against his throat has his brows furrowing and he shakes his head, trying to shake it. 

Perhaps he can avoid it as long as possible if he doesn't allow himself to voice what's spiraling around in his mind. _I had a sex dream about a ghost whose haunting me._ The images are so clear now, and the isolation of the sound of the running water and the fact he has absolutely no idea what time it is in the afternoon makes it easier for him to reach down and squeeze at the base of his cock. 

_Maybe my ghost is seducing me._ Johnny thinks, bemused, palming at the head of his cock as he thickens in his hand. 

_Maybe he's going to seduce me and murder me so we can live together forever._ His thoughts grow more hysterical even as he pumps himself under the water. He’s never been one to run away from addressing a complicated thought, but there’s something so absurd about his situation. He should tell someone, shouldn’t he? Who would he tell, and what would he tell them? 

Especially now, as his cock leaks over his fist and his orgasm rushes towards him like a freight train. This isn’t for public consumption, it’s entirely unbelievable, and the outcome is that he’ll either be found murdered in his own house or be committed. 

Even so, it’s hard to feel shame, and the phantom feeling of lips pressed to his neck and legs entwined with his own has him spilling between his fingers, gasping quietly and catching himself against the shower wall.

As usual, when the zing of pleasure fades reality sets back in and a heavy weight sits in his mind. 

Is he going crazy? Are these moments the death throes in the story of his own reclusive tale? Will they look back and say ‘He lived alone in that house, no one could have known?’ or ‘The neighbours said they stopped seeing him out and about. He must have gone crazy in that old house.’

He wraps a towel around his waist and avoids his own gaze in the mirror. The floorboards creak as he walks through the upper level to his bedroom, and when he steps inside, there's an odd shape in his peripheral that makes him look up.

Sun catches white against grey hair and exposed skin glows golden with the setting of the sun. A man, long-legged, is sat primly at the vanity in the corner of the room. His hair and clothes are completely soaked and cling to his body. Even so, he looks near-ethereal in the light that reflects off the mirror. 

Plush, pouty lips parted in concentration. The man is gazing at himself, tugging at the skin of his own cheek with a vague look of annoyance. A long straight nose framed by the barest hint of dimples under a long-lashed gaze. His skin is almost white in it’s paleness, glowing in the sun, but heat rises like a red flush over his cheeks, nose, and the exposed curve of one shoulder.

The man startles when their eyes lock, just a barely perceptible expression of panic dawning on his face and the next second Johnny blinks and he’s gone, as if he were never there in the first place. Vanished into thin air. 

Johnny stares at the space where the boy had sat, hands folded primly in his lap. Golds and yellows dance across the room and the hanging glass trinkets in the windowsill sway like a pendulum, as though by a faint wind. 

For a long, tense moment, Johnny doesn’t dare move. His heart races in his chest, and his hands tighten into fists as he braces himself against something- a thought, perhaps. An idea that seems crazy, but might just actually be the way of things. The way the world is. 

Johnny likes to think he can roll with the punches better than any of his friends, but this type of thing really does take a moment to process. There’s a difference between thinking you might be losing your sanity, or question whether you believe in ghosts, in _hauntings_ and having your reality be decided for you.

Johnny grabs some sweatpants and a sweater and decides to sleep on the couch downstairs. He doesn’t hear or see anything unusual all night and does his best to ignore the creeping sensation of guilt and worry that lines his awareness. Darkness falls and he finds sleep by the glowing embers of the fire.

When he awakens the next morning, a coffee is steaming on his desk in the study and his tablet screen is lit up with two words, in black 11pt font on a white background: _I’m sorry._

His days garner a sense of normalcy for a while after that. Normalcy for him, anyway. He wakes and drinks his coffee, he writes, he visits his neighbours so they don’t think he’s died, and he starts reading one of the books that’s arrived from his Amazon order. 

His coffee is made every morning, as though in apology, and the house is suspiciously tidy. Fall is in full swing now and the memory of Johnny rising to snow outside his window and his fire lit becomes a hazy memory. 

The seasonal chill of the house makes him wonder a bit, though, about all that’s happened since then. Preparing against the oncoming early winter chill, he walks around the house in a sweater most of the time, and dons a wool jacket whenever he ventures outside. 

On a tuesday evening, he’s standing in his small laundry room folding clothes out of the dryer when a thought hits him. 

He’s packing, tonight, to be in the city for a couple days. He’ll visit his parents and meet with his publisher - he’s already got his tablet packed in his overnight bag, along with his toiletries. The house will be empty for two days. 

_Alone_, Johnny thinks with a sudden pang of guilt. 

There’s been a coldness to the house all day, an anxiety that is not his own. The lightbulb that casts the laundry room in a single, unforgiving white sways ever so slightly.

“I’m not leaving for good…” Johnny feels compelled to say. 

The room is small, and so Johnny feels it acutely when the space becomes ever smaller. The touch that settles at the bottom of his spine is tentative, unsure. Johnny resists his normal impulse and continues to calmly fold his laundry. He hasn’t been touched so solidly in several days and he doesn’t want to spook the presence, to ruin the moment.

_I was worried you were mad at me._

An frown tugs at the corner of Johnny’s mouth, and slender arms snake around his waist in a barely-there hug. When he looks down, he sees nothing, but the touch doesn’t disappear. Anxious goosebumps rise on his arms even as he tries to accept the touch.

“I don’t mind… seeing you, you know?” He sounds crazy, but he knows he isn’t. He’s felt things, heard things, seen things… tasted things. They’re real. It doesn’t feel too insane to speak it into existence.

The touch lingers before finally pulling away, and Johnny stacks his clothing before carrying them to his bedroom. The light in the laundry room dims before finally going dark as he steps away.

In the morning, Johnny sets his travel bag by the door and makes his rounds of the house, murmuring his thoughts out loud as he goes.

“Plants are watered… if you think this one needs more, it doesn’t. It’s tricking you. He needs to dry out a bit so he shouldn’t be watered until after I’m home.” 

He stacks wood by the fireplace. “In case you need to get warm.” He reasons.

He sets out an empty notebook and a mechanical pencil on his desk in the study. He picks up the small yellow flower that’s been left on the wood’s surface and tucks it into the lapel of his grey woolen coat. The rest of the books he’s ordered have arrived, and he stacks those alongside the notebook on the desk. 

“In case you missed them.”

He makes sure all the windows and doors are secure and, swinging his bag over his shoulder, stands in the foyer, unsure. It’s only a couple days. A trip he would have made in the past without a second thought. He feels the mood in the house. An unrest.

_I’ll miss you._

There’s nothing out of the ordinary before his eyes, but Johnny feels it acutely. More present than ever.

“I’ll miss you.” Johnny echoes, eyebrows drawn over a bemused expression. He peeks inside his mind to try and rustle up a glimmer of logic in it all. To worry. Instead he feels remarkably calm, reconciled.

-

Two days turn into three days. His cousin is getting married, and his mother is insistent Johnny stay another day while he and his fiance are in town wedding planning. 

He does stay, somewhat begrudgingly, but he loves his cousin and treasures the time they spend catching up once they finally get away from the rest of the family. Johnny tucks in for his final sleep in the city knowing he’ll be driving back in the morning, but for one neurotic moment wonders if he can call home to say he’ll be late.

He doesn’t have a house phone, but he should install one, he thinks. Just in case. Can ghosts answer the phone? Johnny’s seen enough movies to know it seems to be one of their preferred methods of communication. He barely sleeps.

-

The house looms gloomy and dark under the trees when he arrives home. The trees shudder in the wind, glowing orange and red with their final sparse smattering of leaves, but the sky is overcast with impending rain. Johnny feels something uneasy in his stomach.

There's a distinct lack of a welcome when he steps inside but it he smells the telltale smell of recent woodfire smoke. The pile of wood by the fireplace is slightly smaller. 

He doesn’t know what he was expecting, but he’s grown used to the _presence_, the feeling of familiarity, and while it’s somewhere in the house, Johnny feels ignored.

A couple of the books he left in the study are spread across the tabletop, and the empty notebook he’d left is absent. The plants seem to hang, absent of their usual perkiness, and the crystals and glass in the windows don’t sway. He’s dead on his feet, and gut pinging with guilt, he leaves his travel bag by the front door and climbs the stairs.

His bed is completely unmade; sheets lifted and twisted as though he’s just woken up instead of returning after two days to what had previously been a made bed. He stands, and stares. 

A familiar feeling now, he’s at a loss. 

He strips himself of his coat and lays it over the back of a chair. The yellow flower is still tucked nicely in his lapel, but it's much-wilted now. He steps out of the rest of his clothes and slides into bed, moving slowly as though not to disturb a sleeping partner. Finally he settles on his back, and stares up at the ceiling.

“I’m sorry…” he murmurs, still feeling comfortably crazy for talking to himself like this. There is no answering shift in emotion in the room, but there is a strange yawning silence that stretches out expectantly. Johnny runs his hands over his face, exhausted.

“Is it crazy that I thought about installing a house phone? I thought… I could have called. If I’d called, could you answer?” He scrubs his face some more and sighs, dots dancing across his vision. 

For the first time since he got home, there’s a response: an interest in the air around him. Palpable curiosity. Johnny laughs at himself.

“I didn’t want you to think I wouldn’t be coming back. It’s my mother-” He sighs again and trails off, dropping his hands to the bed. It’s no use - he just feels nuts. Talking to himself like this, it’s hard to stave off the embarrassment, the unease. 

_I just missed you_, Johnny thinks a little aggressively, to himself. He doesn’t want to be ashamed. This is real, he knows it. He aches for recognition.

And perhaps its palpable in the air, his need, because terror rises in his throat as the bed visibly dips. The comforter is pulled back as though by an invisible hand. A cold sweat breaks out across his neck and then there are fingers spreading across his chest as a body settles against his own, tucking against his side.

“Jesus…” Johnny mutters, eyebrows rising under the fringe of his hair. The covers are pulled up slightly and it's a surreal feeling to see them settle over what is seemingly nothing. An arm is draped over his waist, and the unmistakable weight of his phantom’s head rests on his shoulder. Johnny’s stomach tightens.

_Don’t be afraid of me._ The air is heavy with a plaintive request. Johnny swears he can hear it, but the room is silent. 

The body against his own is _real_, warm even, but completely invisible. Is there really any point in arguing with himself anymore? He’s not alone in this house, the physical weight of another person like a bell ringing true. 

Despite his heart thundering against his ribs, he raises his arm and hesitantly curls it around the body beside him. There’s resistance, and hysterically he thinks how ridiculous it must look to cuddle with an invisible person in his bed.

“Don’t freak out. Don’t freak out.” He urges himself quietly. There's amusement in the twist of a grin against his shoulder as arms curl tighter around him. The air smells clean, floral and wet with forest.

Mind wound tight, Johnny finds sleep surprisingly quickly. The weight on his chest is a comfort, but his mind turns tumultuous as he dreams, exhausted. Fingers push away the tension on the brow, and Johnny settles.

-

He feels a bit like he’s on an extended vacation. Days run dreamy and long and he writes very little.

So much time is devoted to testing the boundaries of their new relationship. Sometimes Johnny can touch him. Sometimes Jungwoo can write him little notes, and he signs them. _Jungwoo._

_You’re a nerd. -JW_

That’s the first one. Johnny keeps it pinned to the fridge.

Johnny uses his name as much as possible out loud. Just to get used to the sound on his tongue.

Intimacy blooms.

Life becomes Johnny standing in the kitchen with a hand at his back. Cleaning the fireplace and laughing as he brushes ash from Jungwoo’s near-translucent cheeks. Even on days when he doesn’t seem to be able to show all of himself to Johnny, there’s a visible flush to his cheeks and Johnny memorizes the handsome curve of his jaw and the soft arc of his eyebrow.

He rests at night by the glow of the firelight, music filtering dreamily from his speaker nearby. Jungwoo will press to his side and read the books Johnny has ordered. He is almost almost damp- always in a state of just drying off. He smells like the forest and Johnny’s is calmed by his presence.

In the cloying darkness of one dreary night, Johnny allows a new closeness. It’s storming outside and Jungwoo is despondent, folded so close to Johnny’s side his nose is pressed cold against the curve of his shoulder. He is barely visible and oddly cool and Johnny rubs his arm as they both watch the fire and listen to the creak of the house around them.

The windows shudder with a particularly forceful burst of wind and Jungwoo whines quietly, burrowing closer. So rarely has he heard Jungwoo that Johnny almost starts when the soft lilt of an unfamiliar voice rises in the quiet of the room.

Slowly, bravely, and unprompted- Jungwoo tells Johnny the story of how he was lost to the river.

When he is done, voice hoarse and almost imperceptible, Johnny holds him close. Goosebumps sit uncomfortably along his skin through the entirety of the story, his stomach heavy like a stone. He suddenly has the information he feels like he's desperately wanted up until now, but the truth of it seems somehow too simple, too sad.

They stay like that all night, until only the embers glow in the darkness of the room and Johnny sinks into the couch. Jungwoo fades and fades until he’s nothing more than the wrinkled sweater Johnny had lent him and when Johnny wakes he is alone.

-

Despite this newfound closeness, Johnny finds there’s little need to be more vocal than usual. He talks to himself, as he always has, but now presumes that Jungwoo is listening in, and so he tries to be more interesting than he'd normally consider himself.

Jungwoo is so sweet with him, flirtatious and always laughing. He is often a restless busy-body, always having to do something with his hands, and these stretches of time are broken only by the naps he takes when exhaustion seems to find him. He craves closeness in these moments, and he isn't shy.

His legs are too long but he always finds a way to lock them with Johnny's and tuck himself along the back of the couch. He fits neatly under Johnny's arm, breath warm through Johnny's t-shirt. His hair curls half-wet and storm grey against the curve of his cheek and Johnny brushes it aside, always shocked when he finds Jungwoo flushed with heat.

The house stretches quiet and cold in the days after Jungwoo steps into the forest. Somehow, after almost a week of closeness Johnny, who has always been comfortable being alone, expects he'll finally be productive instead of being content to doze in front of the fire.

Instead, writing eludes him. It’s almost bizarre, how the house seems to lack any life at all in Jungwoo's absence, and Johnny's a little shocked to admit he has yet to leave his own mark on the house. He still feels like a guest.

He travels into the city to buy groceries and new clothes. Just a few items to prepare for the upcoming winter. Big sweaters and woollen socks. He buys a new saucepan and detours by the market on the way home to pick up some seasonal vegetables. They're not in their prime, but Johnny hopes the smell of cooking shallots will lure Jungwoo home.

He ponders on the walk home, how content he is with his everyday. The familiarity of fingers twined with his own, of the smell of clean damp hair tucked under his chin. He thinks about cooking for Jungwoo, of tucking him into one of Johnny's big sweaters, and kissing him as he sits with swinging legs on the countertop.

The image is so domestic, so sweet that Johnny sniffs against the cold air, cheeks burning.

He's never instigated, and he hasn't often allowed himself to imagine how the curve of Jungwoo's grin would taste, but it does become harder and harder as Jungwoo's boldness increases. His body becomes attuned to the smell of his hair, and the warmth of his touch. To the rare, and coveted whisper of his voice.

Johnny doesn't miss that the longer Jungwoo is gone, the more corporeal he returns. It's two days later when Johnny is caramelizing shallots in the kitchen that Jungwoo returns. Unlike the days he sometimes seems unaware of any fluctuations in temperature, he arrives shivering and sniffling in the kitchen. His wet hair twists against his forehead and his cheeks burn as he drifts into Johnny's waiting arms.

Trembling, he folds himself into the warmth of Johnny's chest, breathing him in even as he soaks through Johnny's shirt.

Heedless of the uncomfortable dampness, Johnny's chuckles.

"Smell nice?" He means the shallots, which are starting to brown more than he would like, but cold fingers tease under the hem of his shirt and Jungwoo nods. Johnny pulls away only long enough to turn off the burner on the stove.

Jungwoo is always pliant when he returns like this and Johnny leads him to the warmth of the fire. He always accepts the hot coffee and dry clothes Johnny brings him. He strips in the living room in the glow of the fire with so little shame that Johnny holds his breath. His body is statuesque and willowy and painted with dark shadows that spread over his skin like black feathers.

It's impossible not to stare when Jungwoo gratefully slurps up a spiralled forkfull of spaghetti and bolognese. His happy hum is like a balm on Johnny's soul and Johnny can't deny him when Jungwoo slips happy and sated into his arms, whispering how lucky he is to know such a talented chef. Johnny glows.

Nights like this and the days that follow Jungwoo is at his most indulgent. He touches Johnny freely and Johnny gets almost no writing done whatsoever. He doesn't complain, but he's happy when they find a happy balance. When he's sleepy, Jungwoo climbs into his lap and drapes his arms over Johnny's shoulders, napping with his nose pressed to the crook of Johnny's neck. After the first few times, Johnny learns to be less distracted, and types softly at the keyboard on his desk as warm breath tickles rises goosebumps on his skin.

Disciplined, Johnny moves with the ebb and flow of their relationship, allowing Jungwoo into his space with as neutral an acceptance as he can muster. He almost never touches first, but he’s come to peace with their co-existence. It’s like having a stranger with whom you share a perilous moment of intimacy and never recover, tonguing at the idea of something more like peanut butter on your teeth.

Jungwoo is always watching him, touching him, unabashed in his appreciation of Johnny as he is in all things. He takes care of him, often wasting precious energy doing dishes or folding laundry. Small, almost-significant things Jungwoo thinks will please him. He has an effortless joy to him that Johnny finds more than a little charming.

Johnny admires him as innocently as he can.

He’s only just gotten used to the reality of Jungwoo by his side, often fully corporeal at least three days of the week. It’s quite another thing to imagine indulging his desire to touch him affectionately of his own volition, to allow Jungwoo to pull him close. To not fretfully maintain a platonic distance between them.

There’s nothing platonic about the way Jungwoo slinks into his bed at night and twines their legs. How he presses his face to Johnny’s shoulder and falls asleep, damn and warm, at his back.

Johnny can barely be blamed for the possessive slide of his palm over Jungwoo’s hip, or the way he breathes in the smell of his hair: fresh and earthy.

Johnny has tried to replicate the conditions of the lake in the bathtub upstairs, even going so far as to spend a whole day lugging bucket after bucket of water up to the house. But Jungwoo tells him it isn’t the same- the water has no power, here, away from the lake.

Johnny senses the dull ache of something uncertain, pressing. He’s not the type to worry over much, but he catches himself staring at the curve of Jungwoo’s pout in profile more and more often. He resolutely ignores the twisting pang beneath his ribs. He's navigating unfamiliar territory.

One night finds him nursing a glass of brandy, bare toes stretching towards the heat of the fire. He’s working, really, but isn’t putting much effort into it. The notes from his publisher lay abandoned in his lap and he gazes into the fire, mind straying to the quietness of the house.

Jungwoo has been gone for over a week.

His departures have grown more and more lengthy and the edges of winter have crept in. Johnny tries not to worry. He's been assured countless times that Jungwoo won't freeze to death, but he doesn't appreciate the way Jungwoo's cycles have seemed to draw out, slowing and freezing like the flow of water itself.

Johnny's gaze lands on the folded house phone, gathering dust on the lap desk. A cord extends, twisting from the back of the charging cradle and meeting the wall. The phone is a pale blue, plastic robin's egg.

He remembers how worried he'd been when he'd thought Jungwoo would feel abandoned, alone. How strange and unwelcoming the house had been upon his return. This plastic purchase was the cost of his peace of mind, then.

He wonders if this is what Jungwoo had felt, then. Despondent.

It’s storming outside. Nearby trees reach and claw at the windows and the house plants seem oddly still against the turmoil of the greenery that slashes against the glass from outside. The sills creak with the wind.

He barely hears it- the shudder of the glass window in the kitchen. A hollow knock, weak. When he eases his way from the couch and into the kitchen, lightning illuminates the back porch and Johnny sees him, slumped against the door. Jungwoo peers at him through the glass, hair plastered to his face. His eyes are half-closed in exhaustion.

He's more grabby than ever when Johnny tugs him inside with a grumble.

"You're freezing!" Johnny tuts. "I wish you'd let me know when I could come _get_ you..." He trails off, murmuring about a coat and a towel as he pats ineffectually at Jungwoo's wet hair with a dish towel. Jungwoo ignores him, pressing into the fold of his arms with a lazily curled smile. He doesn't seem bothered by the cold, even as he shivers. He takes a deep, steadying breath.

Johnny’s frown settles as he lets his arms come to rest around narrow shoulders, resigned. Now they’re both soaked, Johnny notes passively, as he often does. He gazes down at the curve of Jungwoo’s cheek and traces the curl of a stray rivulet of rain as it slips over his skin.

“I can’t believe I'm going to say this,” Johnny breathes, deflating as Jungwoo winds his arms around his waist, “but you’re going to catch a cold.”

Jungwoo says nothing, but peers owlishly up at him. The plumb of his lip catches Johnny’s gaze and Jungwoo bites, urging the flush of blood to the surface.

Johnny doesn’t stop him when Jungwoo reaches up to press his lips to the curve of Johnny’s chin, just below the crease of his mouth.

Something hot and wicked coils in Johnny's gut and he fights the impulse to turn into the soft kiss. He holds his breath and Jungwoo sets his hands against Johnny’s neck, tipping his chin down.

“Look at me.” Voice quiet and sure, Jungwoo demands his attention. Johnny could cry at the sound, so infrequently does he hear his voice. The weight of how badly he's missed Jungwoo hits him like a train, now.

“Why did you go away for so long?” Johnny asks. He tries to hide the whine in his voice, but he feels powerless when Jungwoo holds his face. He closes his eyes and leans into the touch.

Jungwoo’s fingers are so solid, so cold but heat thrums beneath. He feels complete. Alive. Johnny breathes.

There've been hints of Jungwoo like this, breathing and blushing and so painfully human. It has never seemed so possible as now to tip Jungwoo’s face upwards and drag the weight of his gaze over the kissable pout of his lips.

Jungwoo doesn’t answer him, and Johnny watches the water that drips into Jungwoo’s eyes. His thumb rubs under Jungwoo’s bottom lip and his mouth goes slack.

His lips are slick with rainwater and taste just barely of salt. Unashamed, Johnny groans as he tenderly plies Jungwoo's lips with his own and swipes across his tongue. It feels strangely familiar, like coming home.

His sweater sticks uncomfortably to his skin and he parts their lips on a chuckle. Jungwoo's lips reach for him and Johnny grips his cold fingers between his own. He's drawn in for another quick kiss and then he's urging Jungwoo out of the kitchen.

His heart is full as Jungwoo blooms under the heat of the fire. He admires the lazy curl of a sleepy grin and presses a towel to catch the droplets of rain that tremble and fall from Jungwoo’s hair.

The towel is discarded and Jungwoo turns under Johnny’s gaze, drunk on the feeling of blood rising to his cheeks and his hair drying soft and fluffy against his forehead. The fire warms the clothes that stick to his skin and Johnny slides his hands over his waist, wanting.

Gaze focused somewhere in the middle distance, he begins to open Jungwoo’s shirt, one button at a time. He feels anxious, unsure, but gentle fingers run over his chest and Jungwoo looks at him with awe, smiling and content.

Skin is revealed inch by inch and Johnny peels the wet fabric away despite the fight it puts up. Firelight licks over Jungwoo’s shoulder, his clavicle, and Johnny’s mind goes quiet as he leans down to taste the freshly exposed skin.

When a hand slides into the hair at the back of Johnny’s neck and grips, Johnny goes. It’s slow, and Johnny misses. His lips land soft and dry against the corner of Jungwoo’s mouth and the gasp that the touch draws sparking electricity along Johnny’s spine.

They both suck in a breath and Jungwoo shivers in his grasp when Johnny slots their mouths together more surely, jaw angled to nip at Jungwoo's swollen bottom lip.

The sudden shock of lips against his own- plush, eager.

Jungwoo has a taste, clean and aromatic. Wind-bitten. He sighs at the hot spread of Johnny’s hands over his chest and shoulders, pushing at wet fabric. It gathers and catches at his wrists and he chuckles against Johnny’s lips.

Floating somewhere amongst disbelief, Johnny wants to laugh, too. He can’t bring himself to step out of the moment when Jungwoo smiles at him, an open, wanting thing. He’s real where Johnny runs his hands over his naked waist, skin warming and pebbled with goosebumps.

Impatient, Johnny steps back only to drag the comforter from the couch and throw it haphazardly on the floor. He covers Jungwoo’s body with his own and settles into the open V of his thighs. Jungwoo is all laughter, a delicate, tinkling sound.

“You’re making fun of me!” Johnny fake-pouts, covering his face with his hands as Jungwoo tries to kiss him.

“You’re eager,” Jungwoo murmurs against his fingers. Johnny can feel his smile.

“I _am_ eager…” Johnny breaths, hands falling to thread through Junhwoo’s hair. It’s dry and silky ready, slipping through his fingers, and Jungwoo takes his chance to lean up and tenderly suck Johnny’s bottom lip into his mouth. 

“God- you taste,” Johnny swallows a soft whine, “-so good. You taste so good, fuck.” His voice is a low rumble and he grips possessively at Jungwoo’s slim waist.

Jungwoo remains solid beneath him and Johnny feels every flex of his muscles, every shuddered breath when he runs his fingers over pert nipples. Jungwoo’s cock is a hard line against Johnny’s stomach, straining against the soaked cotton of an old pair of Johnny’s khakis that are too big and wrenched low on his hips. They leave glistening trails of wet skin where Johnny nudges them down and he longs to place his mouth there. To taste Jungwoo’s skin drenched with pond water and rain.

Hopelessly happy, Jungwoo laughs against his lips and slips out from beneath him to stand. His expression is as it often is- curious and adoring. Fondness that sticks against the inside of Johnny’s ribs.

It isn’t much more effective, standing, but Jungwoo pops the button of the khakis and starts to peel them from his legs. On his knees, Johnny gazes up at him with dark eyes, hands exploring Jungwoo’s waist as he tries to balance on one leg. Each creamy stretch of skin that’s revealed has Johnny aching for him, mostly getting in the way. He presses his nose against the curve of Jungwoo’s stomach and feels his heartbeat. It’s jarring, elating. 

Fingers digging into Johnny’s shoulder, Jungwoo leans against him and sheds his remaining clothing. Anxiety shows in the clench of his fists and the way he chews at his own lip. 

Johnny would argue Jungwoo’s been the more confident of them both, since first appearing in his life. Now his cheeks burn and he stands with his legs tightly together. His cock is pink and glistening against his stomach but he crosses his wrists over his waist.

Johnny remembers him stripping in front of the fire, eyelashes a dark fan on his cheeks. He’d stretch his arms above his head and twist his hips towards the warmth and Johnny would get one good look at the creamy globe of one asscheek before making himself sparse spectacularly quickly.

Giving up the pretense of restraint, Johnny runs a hot touch up along the inside of one leg. Jungwoo’s skin is still cooler than Johnny’s hand and he shivers under the touch. Johnny’s skin must feel like fire. Goosebumps follow the path of his fingers and he soon lifts Jungwoo’s leg with a wide hand and places it over one shoulder. 

“Don’t hide from me.” He breathes and Jungwoo shivers at his voice rumbling along the inside of his thigh.

His eyes never leave Jungwoo’s as he reaches out with his tongue to lap at the slick, clear precome that gathers at the head of Jungwoo’s half-hard cock. 

“Oh- _Johnny_...” It’s nearly inaudible, but it’s the first time he’s ever heard Jungwoo utter his name. Johnny groans, gripping Jungwoo close with wide hands on his hips and sucking him down to the root of his cock.

Some hysterical part of his brain latches onto the idea that Jungwoo is somehow supernatural, mystical. His tongue searches for the taste of timeless magic, of fairy tales. So many times has he linked their hands together only to wake and find Jungwoo near-invisible. Wrapped in his arms, shimmering like gauzy lace and fog. It’s only natural his monkey brain finds ways to creatively invent alternative tastes for come.

Instead, Jungwoo weeps bitter and salty over his palette, incredibly human. His whimper as he balances on Johnny’s shoulder is throaty and helpless. Johnny could cry.

That ache in his chest is back, and he closes his eyes, elated as Jungwoo grips onto his shoulders and arches into his mouth. He’s dazed under the sensation of Jungwoo leaking over his tongue, thickening between his lips. 

Far out of practice, Johnny’s jaw aches all too soon. His enthusiasm with his tongue is more than enough to make up for it, and he gently pulls back Jungwoo’s foreskin with his free hand. He circles his tongue, lapping across the slick that seeps from the head of his cock and groaning at the taste. It gathers, almost in excess. This tiny detail makes Johnny ache and suck harder.

Trembling and sliding his fingers into Johnny’s hair, Jungwoo stands unsteadily as one leg dangles from Johnny’s shoulder.

“Too soon-” Jungwoo mutters. His eyes are closed and to Johnny he looks perfect. His hips rock subtly, skin glowing and ethereal. Johnny wants to take him to bed.

Allowing his mind to go blessedly silent, Johnny follows his instincts. 

He lifts Jungwoo bodily and laughing brightly, Jungwoo wraps around him with arms and legs. Johnny’s cock brushes uncomfortably against his jeans as he strides barefoot through the house. He climbs the stairs with hot kisses pressed to his throat and has to stop and press Jungwoo to the wall of the landing to teach him a lesson.

“God- I miss you when you’re not here…” Johnny hisses, rocking their hips together. He regrets that Jungwoo is the only one who seems to have lost any clothing.

“You’re noisy-” Jungwoo grins against his cheek and wriggles out of his hold. He walks backwards, their fingers twined. 

Drawn like a magnet to the shy curl of Jungwoo’s smile, Johnny follows him into his bedroom.

He allows himself to be pushing into the bed, and runs his hands over Jungwoo’s thighs when he settles in Johnny’s lap.

Jungwoo doesn’t waste time. Within seconds he’s pushed Johnny’s sweater over his head and pulled Johnny’s belt from it’s loop in his jeans. He’s clumsy and eager and Johnny tries to help him work his jeans and underwear down his thighs. His cock thumps heavy against his stomach and Jungwoo clambours back into his lap with wandering hands.

He grips them both with two hands and rocks against Johnny’s cock, hips starting a sinuous rhythm. Helpless to the vision above him, Johnny has to briefly close his eyes.

Skin glowing in the half-light, Jungwoo is all seduction. Johnny traces the flush that spreads up to his chest with his palms, memorizing the curve of his shoulder and the sound Jungwoo makes when Johnny skates his fingertips over his nipples. The heavy thud of his heart can be felt and Johnny places his hand there, soaking in the sensation of Jungwoo human and thriving and gasping in his lap. He wants it to last forever.

He isn’t sure what he expected, when Jungwoo had pressed their lips together in a sweet kiss in the kitchen. He had countless daydreams of Jungwoo, little vignettes that stuck at the back of his mind. Tugging Jungwoo into his lap so he could spread his hands wide around the curve of a narrow waist. Pressing Jungwoo to the counter’s edge and rutting against the perfect arch of his ass. Kissing along the back of his neck and tasting the rain as Jungwoo twitches and pulses come over his fingers.

He feels a little guilty for it now, but in all his visions Jungwoo was helpless to him, soft and needy in his arms. It’s why he’s a little bemused when he finds himself stretched out on his side twenty minutes later with two of Jungwoo’s fingers tenderly opening him.

“I’ve… never done this,” he thinks to mention. Not because Jungwoo is being anything but gentle with him, but because this moment feels special and strange in its newness in more ways than one. Johnny knows Jungwoo can appreciate that.

“Have sex with a ghost?” Jungwoo asks innocently and Johnny nearly chokes on his laugh. Jungwoo is silly and sweet and charming in all ways, at every time. Yet, not once has he ever really cracked a _joke_. At least not like this.

“Oh my god-“ Johnny’s laugh dies on a gasp when Jungwoo teases at his hole with a third finger, slender and long and blunt where it presses at his rim.

“I’ll be gentle with you,” Jungwoo assures, all soft humour.

He does as he promises. Swallowing around the strange, heavy weight in his throat, Johnny let’s Jungwoo maneuver him fully into his side and press his thigh to his chest.

He peers at Jungwoo over his shoulder and Jungwoo leans over his side to kiss at his temple and push Johnny’s hair back from his face.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs, and Johnny flushes scarlet as the head of Jungwoo’s cock slides across his rim. It’s slick, almost impossibly so. When he sits back on his ankles to align himself properly Johnny sees how the clear ejaculate hands between his fingers glitters like dew on spiderwebs.

He pauses, cock thick and insistent at Johnny’s opening, and stares down at him. Feeling exceptionally vulnerable, Johnny reaches for him, twining their fingers and pulling Jungwoo over his body as the head of his cock pushes past the first ring of tight muscle.

The intrusion is foreign, hurtful, and his muscles spasm around Jungwoo’s cock. The sudden tightness must be uncomfortable for both of them, because Jungwoo makes to pull back and Johnny grips him tighter, holding him still.

“Don’t go anywhere,” he pleads, lashes sticking together with the brief spring of wetness that’s jumped to the corners of his eyes. He tucks his face into the pillows and breathes, forcing himself to relax.

Jungwoo kneads at the meat of his thigh, his ass, and delicately trails his fingers over Johnny’s half-hard cock. His voice is a soft whisper. Jungwoo strokes his leg like he’s calming a spooked horse.

It’s Johnny who finally pushes back, hissing when Jungwoo fills him further, feeling impossibly deep. The sensation, the situation, is overwhelming. Jungwoo leans down to kiss him, turning his chin with gentle fingers. Johnny blesses the way Jungwoo’s clear precome partnered with the lube makes the slide ever easier when he rocks his hips fully back.

Ever so slowly, they find a rhythm. Johnny begs to look at him, and so they turn him and wrap his legs around Jungwoo’s waist so they can both watch the piston of slim hips between the spread of Johnny’s thighs.

Jungwoo is entranced with the way Johnny grips him, awed as he stares where their bodies meeting. His fingertips move with curiosity where Johnny parts for him and Johnny’s voice becomes soft and high at the sensation.

With a strength Johnny didn’t know he possessed, Jungwoo presses his thighs to his chest and starts a ruthlessly slow rhythm. His cock is long like his body and drags across the deepest parts inside Johnny. Mindless, Johnny can only stare and breath through the zing of pleasure that drifts from behind his navel. Memorizing as many small details he can, not least of which is the way Jungwoo feels heavy and foreign inside of him.

Moving with a beautiful intent, Jungwoo leans over him and rocks steadily, fingers tender on his jaw as he gazes down into Johnny’s face. One hand works between them and Johnny tries to catch his breath against the slow, pleasurable touch of Jungwoo’s fingers over the head of his cock.

Vulnerable, with his heart on display, Johnny pulls Jungwoo down to kiss him as he comes. He whimpers, a soft pretty noise, spilling over slender fingers as Jungwoo coaxes him through it. The drag of Jungwoo thick and insistent against his prostate makes him see white.

The present slips back in gradually. Jungwoo’s skin it hot against his own and Johnny tugs him in close, kissing him serenely. Jungwoo has pulled out and holds his cock in one hand, fisting lazily. His fingers are slick with Johnny’s spent and his own precome and Johnny aches to taste him again.

Soft complaints are mumbled when Johnny pushes him into the comforter and covers his body with his own. Jungwoo’s cock is insistent and slick against his stomach and Johnny makes short work of the foreplay, too eager.

He eases his thighs back with wide hands and Jungwoo peers down at Johnny through his fingers when he leans down to lap across the slick on his stomach. Johnny swallows him down, heady and musky, and presses his nose into skin below a creamy navel. The sounds that tremble from Jungwoo’s lips are soft and watery and Johnny searches for more with the will of a hunter. 

Patient, teasing at the head of his cock. Nosing at his thigh before taking his balls into his mouth. He hums with pleasure, at the taste of a Jungwoo on his tongue, and Jungwoo _whines_ and thrusts into his touch.

“I want to taste you-“ Johnny begs, breathless as he licks across the underside of his cock. Jungwoo leaks steadily across his tongue and Johnny groans, hungry. His hands slide under Jungwoo’s ass to lift him and he swallows him down with a pleased him. 

Jungwoo comes on the spot. Obscene noises float between them as he rocks and pulses across Johnny’s tongue. Johnny tries to take it all, but Jungwoo comes a lot, trembling and whimpering and pressing his fingers along Johnny’s scalp.

“So good-“ Johnny moans against his thigh, voice low and throaty.

Expression soft and sleepy, Jungwoo fingers the soft hair that hangs in Johnny’s face, so desperately in love with him. 

The brush of his eyelashes, the draw of his brow. Jungwoo can’t stop looking, can’t stop thinking about the taste of his lips. Now, they’re swollen and pink. Johnny is still trying to lick away the taste of come, and Jungwoo feels his heart thump harder at the fondness that blooms at the sight.

“Kiss me-“ he begs, reaching down. Johnny comes to him silently, urgently. His mouth is hot and slick and it’s fucking too hit- too erotic, the taste on his tongue. Jungwoo shivers and Johnny sighs against his lips, arms winding around him possessive and strong.

“I’m glad you didn’t say no…” he whispers, when he cradled Johnny’s head against his chest. His lips are chapped, and they curl against the bottom of Jungwoo’s throat. The sensation tickles and Johnny only kisses there more obviously, hands already starting to wander for what appears to be round two. Somehow, Jungwoo is not shocked, but he is impressed.

The tone of Jungwoo’s voice brings Johnny pause, and he leans up on one elbow to look down at him. 

“Why would I?” He asks, palm running warm and flat across Jungwoo’s stomach. Goosebumps jump and spread and Jungwoo shimmies further into the pillows, arms tucked behind his head.

“It’s hard to flirt,” Jungwoo pouts. “As a ghost.”

Johnny barks a laugh, eyes wide.

“Are you kidding?”

Jungwoo only shrugs at him, confused.

“You got a little handsy there, mister ghost!” Johnny pokes him in the stomach and Jungwoo flushes red right down his chest.

“I’d argue that it seems to be _quite_ easy to flirt as a ghost.”

Jungwoo chuckles as Johnny’s incredulous expression, and leans in to kiss at the corner of his mouth.

“Maybe.”

-

Every moment that follows is an exercise in discipline as Johnny tries to keep his hands to himself. 

Mostly, he fails. All the tension of the previous weeks dissolve and he makes up for every second he ever resisted putting his hands on Jungwoo’s body. 

Quiet domestic moments where Johnny reads and Jungwoo stretches out beside him on the couch. Johnny dressing him in his clothes only to peel them off later after they decorate for Christmas. Jungwoo disappears into the woods and comes back with snow in his hair. They fit so perfectly that Johnny briefly forgets Jungwoo doesn’t need to eat, or sleep, but he does all of those things. He forgets until he’s alone, anxiously waiting as Jungwoo’s excursions drift longer and longer and the days get shorter and shorter.

Johnny lets Jungwoo spread him out on the sheepskin rug in the bedroom, nude and shivering on christmas morning as he sucks his cock. 

He’s returned full of life, mushy and romantic and greedy with his touches. Johnny takes the whole day off, work abandoned, and they curl together in Johnny’s bed. 

Worry pokes at the back of his mind more persistently when, after Christmas, Jungwoo is gone for a full week. He leaves as he always does, but when he returns he seems exhausted and falls asleep almost immediately in Johnny’s arms. Johnny wants to ask- does this have to go on forever? Why does he leave for longer and longer? Isn’t there some way he can stay here, in their house, cuddled at Johnny’s side?

A day later when Johnny is working up the nerve to verbalize his worries, Jungwoo brings it up first.

They’re naked and sweaty in the rumpled comforter of Johnny’s bed, of _their_ bed. Catching his breath, Jungwoo twines their legs and settles close. He presses tender kisses at the base of Johnny’s throat and holds his breath. His hair slips like silk through Johnny’s fingers.

“I have to go…” he whispers, voice softer than usual. He looks a little like an illusion today, pale and pink and a little see-through. Their lovemaking has the cruel consequence of draining Jungwoo’s energy faster than any other activity. Despite this, Jungwoo always seems ready for him and almost never lets Johnny take the lead. Even when Johnny frets, Jungwoo gives it his all. As expected, this bitter-sweet feeling sits heavy on Johnny’s conscious.

Half-asleep, Johnny turns his chin into Jungwoo’s hair, kissing down to his temple. His chest tumbles a sound of concern, and he lifts Jungwoo’s gaze with a hand under his jaw.

“Where are you going?” Johnny’s voice feels small. He asks, but he doesn’t need to.

“If I want to stay…” Jungwoo swallows, searching Johnny’s face. “I have to go.”

It feels like a rock has sunk in his stomach and Johnny tries not to grip Jungwoo too tightly.

“How long?” 

Jungwoo covers Johnny’s hands with his own, and watches his expression. The curve of his cupid’s bow. The dip of his eyebrow. The shadow of his eyelashes across the top of his cheeks.

“I don’t know.”

Johnny’s mind wanders. Days, weeks, months. Waking up alone. Going to bed alone. Stretches of productivity, of writing. Pockets of loneliness. Standing in the kitchen watching the seasons change. Turning his attention to other things. Wondering if Jungwoo will return. Worrying he’ll forget. 

It’s suddenly impossible to imagine his life before the two of them. 

Kissing his fingers, Jungwoo’s eyes begin to water as he watches the tension in Johnny’s brow, in the way he bites his lip.

“Okay.” Johnny breathes, thumb coming to rub tenderly over the curve of Jungwoo’s jaw. His own lips tremble, and he tightens his jaw against it.

Jungwoo makes a choked sound, trying to catch Johnny’s gaze.

“I’ll never forgive you if you never come back. I’ll spend my whole life being heartbroken.” Johnny can’t help the sniffle and he laughs to cover it, rubbing at his own nose.

“I promise.” Jungwoo whispers, and he’s crying. Salty, gasping breaths. Sorrowful, Johnny kisses him.

-

Spring brings mud and freezing rain. Jungwoo helps Johnny plan what he’ll plant in the garden when the weather warms up. He stands at his side in the kitchen when Johnny makes dinner, loathe to be apart from him. Johnny knows the time is coming. Any day could be the day Jungwoo doesn’t come back.

Johnny has to go into the city for his cousin’s wedding. When the save the date had arrived, Jungwoo had been the one to pin it to the fridge with a magnet. Their own personal calendar.

The week before he leaves, Johnny gets a haircut and Jungwoo sits in his lap that night, kissing him slowly and tenderly for what feels like hours, complaining when his fingers won’t run the full length of Johnny’s hair like they used to. Even so, he can’t stop touching it, and Johnny mourns for the next haircut Jungwoo will miss. There seems little point in bothering when Jungwoo won’t be there to tease him about it. 

Johnny tries hard to chase away to morose thoughts.

He buys a new suit that week, as well, and tries to be present when Jungwoo makes him try it on for him only to promptly peel him out of it. He refuses to obsess over the way Jungwoo is softer and lighter and more see-through than he often allows himself to get these days.

He stands in the foyer, ready for travel, but somehow can’t fight back the big thick tears that gather in his eyes.

“Always a sap,” Jungwoo whispers, willowy in his arms. Johnny kisses him like it’s the last time. It might be, and he allows himself to remember the moment as if it is. He knows if he doesn’t accept this now, he never will. Jungwoo would be disappointed if Johnny forgot how to live his life.

When Johnny steps down the laneway, wiping furiously at his face with his sleeve, Jungwoo sets to work on the house, sharing as much of his energy as he’s able. He hopes it will keep the house cheerful and warm and bright in his absence. That when Johnny is sad, a remnant of his presence will help Johnny find hope in his heart.

He doesn’t intend to be gone forever, but he still has yet to understand all the complicated factors involved in what he’s trying to do. He has worked with focused determination in the last few months, trying to be present and cognizant of the changes in his body when he rests himself in the pond. 

There is only nothingness when he wakes up. Rarely any memories of time passing. He knows he has some minor control over when he wakes, but he knows this time he’ll have to ignore those urges. _It’ll be a bit like hitting the snooze button over and over until you forget what time of day it is,_ he muses as he bestows small kisses one each of the plants in the house. 

He tries not to think about Johnny, shoulders stiff as he had left down the laneway. If he does, he’ll waste precious energy crying. He can’t be deterred.

The house, when he drifts through the wall and into the backyard, is blanketed in palpable magica energy, rich in intention. It’s not protection, or good luck. It’s simply life. The intention for the flowers to shine and bloom when the warm weather comes. For the fire to roar with heat as it ought to in the winter. The houseplants in the windows might reach for Johnny when he passes. For a time.

It won’t last long, but Jungwoo hopes its long enough.

When Johnny returns after a few days, Jungwoo is gone. 

He hasn’t even been able to put on a good show for his family, and his mother pulls him aside to ask if he’s okay.

“Doing a lot of research into some dark topics,” he almost laughs as he said it. “For a book. It’s just weighing on me a little.” He kisses his mother on the cheek and gives her a winning smile.

“I’ll be okay.”

He hopes he can believe it himself if he speaks it aloud, but there’s no fighting the choked tears that come over him when he drops his bag in the foyer.

There is such an obvious, present warmth that is so distinctly _Jungwoo_ that it almost makes it harder in the following days.

He emails his publisher and asks for an extension on the next chapter. He’s ahead, anyway, and she grants him the time without a question.

Johnny tries to write, but they’re only sad, pathetic things. He curses his inherent attachment to sentiment. He’s openly miserable for days until something seems to settle in him.

His coffee mysteriously comes out every morning exactly as though Jungwoo had made it himself. After Johnny fights back the frustrated, bitter tears, he finds he enjoys it. Perhaps it is a bit easier, to pretend. Johnny is almost angry that Jungwoo has done anything to give him hope, after all the emotional legwork he had done to try and come to terms with it all.

But through it all, he knows that there’s still one piece of him that hasn’t let the idea go. The idea that Jungwoo will come back to him. It sits like a hot, molten core inside, flaring up whenever the baubles sway in the window when he walks by, or he smells the rain in the cotton of his pillowcases.

After some time, the pain lessens. He works on the garden when it’s warm outside, and the cicadas hum and drone and Johnny doesn’t feel like he’s alone. Or thinks about the fact that he is, less.

Jungwoo had picked all the right flowers for a beautiful english garden, and Johnny spends most of his time outside in the summer, writing in his notebookby hand more than he used to. More than before Jungwoo.

Before he knows it, fall is upon him and Johnny chops wood for the fire, stocking up the small wooden shed at the back of the property so he’ll have enough to keep himself warm through the whole winter. 

Sadness has begun to creep back in at the edges, after months of progress. Mostly because Johnny associates autumn with coming to terms with Jungwoo’s presence in his life. Those first exploratory touches. The intent in his Jungwoo’s actions, the flirtation in his own home.

The magic that Jungwoo had left behind dilutes itself steadily with the passage of time. The plants inside need his more constant attention. His coffee is back to tasting like the typical swill only he seems to be able to make. His sheets smell only of him.

Winter comes, and in the void Jungwoo’s lingering presence has left, Johnny has dreams. 

_Kiss me_, Jungwoo will beg, but all Johnny can do is cry. He always wakes up feeling guilty and ashamed. 

He spends Christmas with his mother in the city and she hosts a huge party. Easily over fifty people Johnny has never met or barely remembers. He coaxes up the part of himself that used to like having a little fun and catches up with her friends and their sons and daughters. Still, when it’s nearly one AM and a nice boy from Johnny’s childhood tries to drunkenly kiss him in the hallway to the kitchen, Johnny politely pushes him away.

“I’m saving myself for someone,” he explains, and hands the man a glass of water.

-

Nearly a year later, Johnny starts to find his groove again. He’s since finished and published his newest book and is getting quite far ahead on a new one. Predictably (he thinks), a ghost story. Somehow it helps him sort through his feelings. His heart pangs for Jungwoo more than ever, but he wraps his love like a blanket around his shoulders and carries it with him always.

On the anniversary of the last time he held his love close, he goes to the pond for the first time. It is exactly as he remembers it, although there’s a thinning layer of ice that clings to the shores. He can’t bring himself to stay long, but he leaves dried flowers on a rock by the water’s edge and allows himself a brief cry.

His hair has grown long and unruly. It’s not to do with sadness, or mourning. If or when Jungwoo returns, Johnny wants him to have at least this. Some proof that Johnny waited, believed he would return. He keeps it up in a messy bun at the back of his head but windswept strands drift across his face. He tucks his chin into his scarf and makes his way up the path.

Johnny suffers an almost unforgivably hot summer, and publishes a new book. It gets rave reviews, but Johnny doesn’t really feel like he can take any of the credit. His thoughts and emotions are inspired only by one person, although Johnny leans away as far from the truth as he can bear when he writes.

It’s the second year alone when Johnny comes back to the pond. Spring has come early this year, and the sun is almost warm. The water, when he peers through it, is crystal clear and smells so intimately of Jungwoo that Johnny is hit with a painful pang that hasn’t flared up in some time.

“I love you,” he whispers on the wind. “Someday I’ll see you again.”

-

On the eve of Johnny’s twenty ninth’s birthday, he stands under the fall sun in his backyard and saws two by fours. His flannel jacket is covered in wood bits and his gloves are rough from the countess days he’s spent preparing all the wood for assembly. 

He thinks, in the summer, he’ll build a chicken coop. He’s been working over the last year to expand the backyard a bit, and he’s made room right next to the shed at the back of the property. There are stacks of wood there now, from his work in the past week. The backyard smells deliciously of oak.

He’s carrying an armful of wooden slats to the shed when the crack of a branch in the woods draws his attention. He narrows his eyes, turning to peer into the woods.

Standing amongst the golds and reds of the maples, Jungwoo stands, peering at Johnny from behind a tree. His skin stands out like peach against the dark of the forest, and his eyes shine warm with yearning.

“Do you really love me?” Jungwoo whispers, voice uncertain from his place on the edges of the trees.

Johnny barely registers what he’s doing when he drops the wood at his feet and sprints across the grass. The brush in the forest cracks under his boots and then he’s lifting Jungwoo into his arms, gripping him tight with a helpless, pained noise.

Nude and pale, Jungwoo wraps his legs around Johnny’s waist and burrows into his chest. Sobbing, Johnny strokes over his hair as he sinks to his knees.

His heart hammers in his chest and Johnny tries to catch his breath, but it’s like something has cracked open inside of him. Jungwoo smells… human, real. Like the pond, like the trees, but also distinctly of _him_; woody, sweet and peppery. The rumble of his voice in his chest is so _present_. The weight in his arms is grounding. The heat from his skin takes Johnny’s breath away completely.

“You look different…” Jungwoo whispers when he eventually pulls back. His fingers push a stray wisp of chesnut brown hair behind Johnny’s ear and he pets at the messy bun at the base of Johnny’s neck.

“Did I complain so badly, you did this?” He asks, and his smile is breathtaking. Johnny kisses him. He can’t do anything else. It feels like his heart has broken all over again but he’s light, light as he’d been that day floating in the pond under the sun.

“Did you mean it?” Jungwoo murmurs against his lips, fingers tugging at the elastic in his hair. He looks nervous with Johnny’s silence, and Johnny brushes away stray wood chips that have gotten stuck in his hair.

“I should have told you before I left. I should have-“ Johnny’s face contorts again with emotion, and Jungwoo presses at the tension in his brow with his thumbs, just like he used to do.

“It wouldn’t have made a difference,” Jungwoo promises. “I knew.”

He wipes at Johnny’s tears with his thumbs, and kisses him until he earns a wet laugh and Johnny dropping his head to Jungwoo’s shoulder.

“Will you stay?” Johnny asks, expression open and vulnerable.

“Of course.” Jungwoo rubs their noses together and wiggles closer, hands digging into Johnny’s pockets. Johnny closes his eyes and breathes him in, arms winding tight around his shoulders.

“Will you take me inside?” Jungwoo whispers against the shell of Johnny’s ear, heart light. “I’m cold.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for taking this journey with me!
> 
> Please follow me:
> 
> [cc](https://curiouscat.me/prittleceebs)  
[twt](https://twitter.com/prittleceebs)
> 
> The next chapter is optional: it contains the actual story of Woo's death (which is not graphic, but is explained), as well as a couple domestic outtake moments that add to the verse and didn't have a place in the main fic.
> 
> Proceed, heeding the tags.
> 
> Thank you for all the love! I have felt sincerely supported while writing this fic.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A series of outtakes.
> 
> Warning:
> 
> This chapter contains character death, described (no gore, blood, etc...) as well as some 'moments in time' from the fic.
> 
> This is an optional read and absolutely not necessary to enjoy the story.

Jungwoo had been a fine child. Truthful, dependable, eager but patient. He listened well and watched twice as closely as any other child. He learned the meaning of tone early, and wielded it carefully as he grew. The adults in his life thought he was a wonder.

“So thoughtful!” His mother’s friends had exclaimed, cooing over his every effort to be a kind, considerate son. Jungwoo’s father's friends didn’t treat Jungwoo the way they did their own sons- they didn’t see in him what they wanted. A tough, athletic kid who’d play soccer, or rugby. 

Instead their gazes held a different appreciation, different expectations. 

“He’ll be an engineer some day, I’m sure of it.” He’d overhear his father say to a friend, fondness clear in his voice. “He’s whip smart. It’s almost uncanny.” And those men would always hum and nod, impressed because Jungwoo had the mark of a scholar. 

“This paper is extremely well-constructed, Jungwoo! It far surpasses the quality I would expect from someone your age!” The expression on his teacher’s face matched his words: shock.

“Do you do a lot of reading? Studying at home?” There was a tone in his teacher’s voice that hinted at disbelief. Jungwoo had been accused of plagiarism before, in previous years. He was an avid reader, and preferred to study in his free time. 

The level of quality with his schoolwork had always aroused suspicion, but when there was no evidence against him, his teachers had to conceded he was simply ‘gifted’. 

His mother, who loved him dearly and was sensitive to the needs of others, kiboshed the use of the word to save her son embarrassment as he grew. Still, as he grew older and moved from junior high to high school, some teachers still questioned his work.

“Sometimes...” Jungwoo began, leaning down a little to be at eye level with his teacher. It wasn’t hard- he was only 11 and his teacher was sat at his big oak desk at the front of the classroom. “Adults get thrown back in time, and they get stuck.”

Brows drawn, his teacher stared back at him as he stood straight, before his expressed turned into one of pleased bemusement.

“You’ve got a brain on you, Kim.” His eyes held the same strained patience Jungwoo hated. “You’ve got some weird ideas in there, but I hope you’ll go far.”

Jungwoo does go far, and paths a trajectory somewhere in the middle of what everyone had expected for him. 

He isn’t an engineer, although his layman's knowledge of modular design does surpass that of most. Expectedly, he isn’t an athlete, but he does excel in school to the highest degree and earns several scholarships to take him to university. 

He is accepted by, and studies at the finest school, and completes his masters in the minimum amount of time needed. The tinkling voices of his mother’s friends ring true in his memory: maybe he’ll be an artist some day. And perhaps he isn’t, not fully. But he is a celebrated author of a series of short novellas, and his career only continues to pick up steam from there.

His friends joke that he’s a workhorse, content to create content tirelessly until exhaustion takes him and he sleeps like the dead. 

He does it to calm the rushing in his mind- the impossible weight of expectation. He does everything to crush that feeling, to quiet it. He chats with his elderly neighbour in the elevator until she’s chuckling and red faced. He hums when he walks to the store. He flirts with a dedication that can’t be oversold. He plays each interaction like a harp, fingers slipping just barely over the awareness he carries, is plagued by. It can quiet his mind, for a time, if he feels he’s doing good. If he can make better the lives of those around him.

To know him is to know only that he is happy, dedicated, and successful. If his friends ever suspect the suffocating blanket of expectation, they don’t mention it.

He moves into an aged, cottage-like house in his early twenties, tucked unexpectedly towards the outskirts of a city. Paved paths and roads wind around him, and a towering apartment building down the streets paints the urban outline. His garden is surrounded by tall, old trees, and his driveway hides the charm of his house from the main road. The bustle of the city can barely puncture the bubble of quiet the small forest offers, and at night it is quiet.

Amongst the writing, Jungwoo pours countless hours into his home. He perfects the English garden outside, adding new and interesting plants that are hardy and bright. Inside, he paints the window sills, buffs and stains the wood, and picks vibrant, charming colours to paint each room. He dots his home with pops of texture- stones piled in a neat triangle in the centre of his marble-top kitchen island, knitted pillows piled high near the fireplace. He fills the living room with hanging pothos and terrariums and sips tea in the afternoons as he murmurs to his plants.

He publishes two more collections, after eight months living in his new home. And then he dies.

Jungwoo would have expected his death to be anything but extraordinary. He thought he would pass out of his life like a whisper, when the time was right. 

Instead, it’s a jumble of bright lights and screeching tires. He narrowly avoids being caught in a car accident, and feels the whoosh of a spinning car as it passes just a few feet from his legs as he jumps back. 

Two cars careen across the bridge, tangled together. The soaked asphalt of the road can’t catch them in the pouring rain. Time seems to slow as Jungwoo steps back, umbrella falling forgotten from his fingers as he watches the cars slam into the medium and over the edge. 

The bridge is small and not incredibly high up from the water but a Jungwoo feels like it takes forever to hear the splash of the twisted metal landing in the water. 

Time speeds up and sound rushes in like a flood. All Jungwoo hears is the pouring of the rain on the ground d. The scattering of metal and glass glinting under the streetlamp is the only evidence of what’s occurred, and Jungwoo is frozen, hair clung to his temples.

His body moves of its own accord, shoes splashing through the rain as he runs to the twisted guardrail and peers over the edge. The hoods of the cars are partially visible and Jungwoo jumps without thinking, heart like a stone in his throat.

The water is warm, and black around him. Light catches the waves as they lap at the hood of one of the cars, and a Jungwoo pulls himself towards it despite the current.

The person inside is conscious, their lips gasping up through the surface of the water as they struggle to remove their seatbelt with water up to their neck.

“I’ve got you.” Jungwoo whispers, voice shaking and wet as he reaches in through the broken window to try and discern the issue. He dips his head below the water but everything is murky in the shadow of the interior of the car, so Jungwoo feels with his hands until he can loosen the belt enough for the driver to squirm out.

“Was there anyone else with you?” He yells when he resurfaces, gasping as he fights against the shock.

There is fear in the driver’s eyes.

“No! No, but...” they both look to the other car which is nearly submerged.

“I’ll help them. Are you hurt? Can you swim?” Jungwoo pushes at the other man in the water with his hands, and the man winces but shakes his head.

“I’ll swim, I’ll swim.” There’s no reason to any of it, Jungwoo thinks. There’s no reason at all to the situation. No time to think. Just do, do, figure it out. Get it done.

The other man is older, maybe in his fifties, and blood gathers at his wet hairline, but he seems okay. Jungwoo nods and pushes him away.

“The current is strong, be careful.”

The man pulls himself away through the water and Jungwoo watches him for only a second to make sure he won’t be pulled downstream before turning his attention to the other car, splashing through the water as fast as his arms will take him.

This driver isn’t so lucky as to be awake. Fear grips Jungwoo heavily as he heaves on the wreckage of the drivers side door and it groans and twists away. The driver is a woman, her curling red hair soaked and floating around her face in the water. Her face is half submerged, and mascara smudges a little on her cheek where her lashes are clumped.

Jungwoo touches her gingerly and her head lolls to the side. Even so, it keeps a natural angle and Jungwoo is grateful to see she is breathing. He tries to wake her to no avail, before finally tugging her free of her seatbelt.

She floats easily in the water beside him, face up and almost serene in the barest light reaching them from the bridge. Her coat, though, is heavy and water logged and Jungwoo has to fight to try and swim with her towards shore. His muscles scream and burn even in the cool of the water, and he sees the man from before halfway back to meet them- he must see Jungwoo struggling.

He can’t speak, he can’t breath- it feels impossible as his energy is hastily sapped from him. The current is stronger where the channel narrows , and even as Jungwoo gets closer to shore he has to fight harder and harder against the downstream.

“Here- pass her to me, I got her.” The man is yelling over the splash of the water, and the stream of rain that Jungwoo still fights to see through. His fingers are number from gripping the scratchy wool of the woman’s coat in tight fists. Chest heaving, he finally gets closer to the man, enough to try to swing the floating woman in the water towards him. 

He succeeds, and the man makes a noise of triumph when he grabs onto the girl even as the current tries to pull her out of his grasp, and Jungwoo slips under. 

He kicks at the water, hoping he’s close enough to shore to hit the ground, but he can’t find any surface. He tries to open his eyes and kick, kick against where he feels the current pulling him. He surfaces again, arms shaking with the effort to keep himself above water.

“Hey-“ he hears the man’s yelling over the gurgling of the water at his ears but he can’t waist breath to call back. He can’t speak. 

His feet finally catch a stone and he tries to grip it with the toe of his sneaker, and it slips. His body tumbles sideways into the water and the darkness takes him. 

It’s quiet underwater, and Jungwoo fights the burning in his chest. He feels it almost before the impact, a weight coming up over him in the darkness, and then it ends, sharp and sudden, and there is only the blessed velvet sound of silence.

-

His indignant anger leaves him in a rush and he allows himself to whisper.

“Do you want to talk.” And it’s quiet, because if nothing else he can pretend he was just playing around, teasing.

The mirror is looking particularly clean and he leans closer to look at his skin, tugging at the soft flesh below his eyes. It’s then that something catches his eye, a shape that doesn’t belong in the reflection. Time slows down as his eyes focus behind him, and the shape vaguely takes form. 

Pale, pale skin, with demure eyes and pouted, pink lips. The figure holds an expression of interest.

Johnny yelps and throws himself back from the sink, landing on his ass on the bathroom floor. Suddenly the cherry sunlight of the room dims, and there’s a rattle of the pipes as the faucet sputter water. He looks up at again at the mirror and it’s dirty, slightly. A small hairline crack starts from one corner and travels halfway up. It’ll need replacing.

-

“Would you mind not sulking so much? I trying to eat.” The tangible sorrow plucks at him, and he finds his appetite disappearing.

Johnny hates it when they fight because it’s like bad luck has decided to follow him around. He drops his favourite mug in the sink the wrong way in the morning and it’s cracks perfectly in half. His tablet dies in the middle of the day and he has to brave the city to find a tech shop that can try and fix or replace it. His work is saved on the cloud but the inconvenience takes away from peak writing time- he’s been on a roll for three days straight now. By the end of his night he’s socially exhausted and irritable. The tines of his fork squeak against the plate.

His comment causes a rush of cold energy to flood the room and a queasiness takes him. Soon, he finds it impossible to eat at all and guilt sits heavily in his stomach as he pushes his plate away.

He pours a glass of brandy, _carefully_, and steps out onto the back porch. He sits heavily on the stairs and stares into the darkness. The trees don’t rustle, the bugs don’t mingle. The fog is heavy and smells of something, ozone perhaps, ever so slightly.

He tilts his head up to watch the light pushing through the clouds and hitting the tops of the trees. He sits heavy with his thoughts, and Jungwoo’s presence flits at the edges of his awareness.

“I’m sorry,” he offers, eventually. Even he knows it’s taken too long. He still remembers how he’d snapped in the morning. When exhaustion had plucked at his nerves and he’d been angry about nothing.

“I don’t want you to go,” he mutters, picking at an invisible piece of link on his jeans.

Warm presses to his side, and even though Johnny can’t see him, he knows it’s Jungwoo’s fingers that twine with his own. Jungwoo’s breath ghosting over his temple.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [cc](https://curiouscat.me/prittleceebs)   
[twt](https://twitter.com/prittleceebs)
> 
> <3 <3 <3


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